Ilibraryofcongress.I 

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f [SMITHSONIAN DEPOSIT.] f 



^ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. \ 



FIRST AND SECOND EEPORTS 



SPECIAL COMMITTEE APPOINTED BT THE EXECIITIYE BOARD 



■^N. T. STATE AGRICULTUEAL SOCIETY, 



STATISTICS, PATHOLOGY AND TREATMENT OF 
THE EPIZOOTIC DISEASE 



KNOWN AS THE 



IIII^DEIII>EST 



V^'^^ 






ALBANY: 

WEED, PARSONS AND COMPANY, PRINTERS. 
1867. 



New York State Agricultural Society,) 
Annual Meeting, February 15th, 1866. \ 

Mr. JuDD, as Chairman of the Special Committee appointed on the subject of 
the Kinderpest, presented the following resolution, which was unanimously 
adopted : 

Besolved, That the Executive Committee of the New York State Agricultural Society are 
requested to give special attention to the progress ot the Rinderpest in foreign countries, and 
to the danger of its introduction here. That they be empowered to use such measures as they 
may deem expedient for obtaining and publishing information in regard to the ravages and char- 
acter of the disease, preventives and remedies to be used, etc., and that if, in their judgment, it 
at any time appears necessary or desirable, they are authorized to employ one or more competent 
persons to make investigations and procure reliable information either at home or abroad. 

Executive Board, Felruary 15^^^ 1866. 
Mr. Conger moved the following resolution, prefacing its presentation with 
the expression of his desire that the President of the Society might be named as 
Chairman : 

Besolved, That the subject of the Rinderpest be referred to a committee of five to prepare from 
foreign papers and other sources a general outline of the statistics and pathological character of 
the disease, with such suggestions as to remedial or preventive methods, as may be deemed advis- 
able for the farmers of the State to pursue in the treatment of the disease, in the event of its 
appearance in this country during the ensuing year. 

The resolution was adopted, and the President, Mr. Gould, Hon. A. B. Conger, 
Dr. JuLiEN T. Williams, L. H. Tucker and M. C. Weld were appointed the 
Committee. 






FIRST REPORT. 



New Yoek State Agricultural Society, ) 

Executive Board, March 2Qth, 1866, f 

The committee of the Society appointed to investigate the statis- 
tics and. pathology of the Rinderpest, and to suggest preventive and 
remedial methods for the protection of the State from its ravages, beg 
leave, by way of preliminary report, and in brief outline, to submit to 
the consideration of the Executive Board, those facts and conclusions 
which, in the judgment of the committee, justify the establishment by 
law of an efficient system of sanitary measures to prevent the intro- 
duction and dissemination of this terrific malady. 

Your committee have had access to many foi-eign journals, agricul- 
tural and medical, which in every issue are filled with statements of 
the destructive career of this plague, and mostly, with humiliating 
admissions of general failure to arrest its spread or establish any 
efficient system of cure. Your committee have also been favored 
through the Secretary of the Society, with copies of the first and 
second reports of the commissioners, appointed by Royal Commis- 
sion to investigate the origin and nature of the cattle j)lague ; and 
the reports prepared on the pathological appearances and symptoms 
of the disease by Dr. Smart, of Edinburgh, which were with great 
kindness and dispatch forwarded to the Secretary by Prof John 
Wilson, F. R. S. E., Professor of Agriculture in the University of 
Edinburgh. 

It appears that as far back as October 21st, 1865, a period of rather 
more than four months after the introduction of this disease into 
Islington, 14,083 animals had been attacked; 6,711 had died; 5,119 
slaughtered ; only 707 had recovered, and 1,546 remained under 
treatment. Since that time the statistics of enumerated cases had 
disclosed the appalling figures of 9,120 attacked in one week, ending 



4 RINDEEPEST. 

January 6th, 1866, and at a later period over 13,000 in one week ; in 
all, officially reported up to January 27th last, 120,740, It is believed, 
however, that at least two hundred thousand animals infected with 
this plague had been destroyed. Although at the last accounts, the 
rate of mortality had decreased, still the highest proportion of recov- 
eries was only twelve in each one hundred cases. 

In Belgium, where a vigorous system of quarantine had been insti- 
tuted, and immediate slaughter of animals suspected to be suffering 
with the premonitory symptoms secured ; only three hundred and six 
cases occurred, seventeen of which died, the rest being summarily 
disposed of by public authority. One case lately occurred at Ant- 
werp, being traced to a smuggled cow. The market was at once 
closed, and all egress of cattle prohibited until further orders. The 
plague was thus successfully checked and Belgium has been free from 
its ravages ever since. 

The disease entered France by one animal bought at Malines, and 
was arrested by the sacrifice of forty-three head of cattle. In Novem- 
ber last, at the Jardin d' Acclimation, it made its appearance in the 
case of two gazelles, brought from India, which had been for three 
days in London. It spread rapidly among other animals at the gar- 
den, but was suppressed by the destruction of thirty-five ruminants 
of different species. 

In Prussia, which has a long line of frontier, and is therefore greatly 
exposed from surrounding territory, where the disease has made exten- 
sive havoc, it has been kept at bay by the most determined action and 
instantaneous use of the knife. 

Aberdeenshire, in Scotland, a county containing' 150,000 head of 
cattle, adopting at the start a policy different from that pursued in 
England, has been quite exempt. It maintained a strict quarantine, 
and authorized summary destruction of all animals infected, under a 
system of compensation to the owners. Out of a fund of £3,000, 
raised by private subscription, £1,400 remained unexpended. Other 
parts of Scotland, which have neglected the precautions adopted in 
Aberdeen, have been frightfully devastated. Ireland, under a like 
system, principally of quarantine, established also with reference to 
persons employed about diseased cattle, has been untouched with 
these calamities. 

The disease appears, from these statistics, and by a general admis- 
sion of all writers on the subject, to be not only of a fatal, but of a 
highly infectious and contagious character. It is not only propagated 
in animals of the bovine race from one to another, but also to all 
classes of ruminants. The contagion is also conveyed in the clothes 



FIRST EEPOKT. O 

and by the persons of those employed in taking care of, or even of 
inspecting the diseased subjects. No remedial agencies have as yet 
been discovered which would justify for one moment the abandon- 
ment or neglect of preventive measures. Public policy and private 
interest alike demand that the pest should, if possible, be stamped out. 

Your committee believe that the introduction of this disease into 
the State of New York, which contains over two millions of horned 
beasts and three millions of sheep, with no sanitary regulations estab- 
lished by law for its suppression, would result, if the ratio of mortality 
should be equal to that in England, in a loss to the people of this 
State of at least five millions of dollars. 

Your committee, therefore, recommend that the Society should 
present a memorial to the Legislature, invoking in behalf of the great 
interests of the farmers of this State, summary and efficient action by 
which the disease may be prevented from coming within the borders 
of the State, and for its extirpation in any locality where it may, by 
possibility, be introduced ; and to this end have prepared a draft of 
a bill* to be presented to the Legislature for its approval. 



AN ACT to prevent the introduction and spread of the disease known 
as the Rinderpest, and for the protection of the flocks and herds of 
sheep and cattle in this State, from destruction by this and other 
infectious diseases. 

The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact 
as follows : 

Section 1. It shall be the duty of the health officer of the port of New York, 
in addition to the duties now imposed on him by existing law, to examine and 
inquire whether any animals are brought in any vessels arriving at said port in 
violation of any regulation of law passed by the Congress of the United States 
prohibiting the importation of such animals. 

§ 2. Whenever any animal is brought as a ship's cow, with no intention of 
landing the same or of violating any such law or regulation of Congress as afore- 
said, the same shall be carefully examined and kept in quarantine for the space of 
at least twenty-one days, and if any symptoms of the infection or incubation of the 
disease commonly known as the rinderpest, or of any other infectious or contagious 
disease, shall present themselves, it shall be the duty of the said health officer 

♦The bill prepared by the committee was, at the requestor the Society, introduced' into the 
Secate on the 31st day of March, by the Hon. Ezra Cornell, ex-President of the Society, and 
with slight amendments, became a law, being passed on the 20th of April, three-fifths being 
present ; a copy of the law, as passed, being given in the- text. 



6 BINDEEPEST, 

immediately to cause the said animal or animals to be slaughtered, and their 
remains boxed with a sufficient quantity of quick lime, sulphate of iron or other 
disinfectant, and with sufficient weights placed in said box to prevent the same 
from floating, and to be cast into the waters of the said port. It shall also be his 
duty to cleanse and disinfect by suitable agencies, the berth or section of the ship 
in which said animal or animals were lying or slaughtered, and also to cause the 
clothing and persons of all taking care of the same or engaged in such slaughter 
and burial, to be cleansed and disinfected. 

§ 3. William Kelly, of Dutchess county, Marsena R. Patrick, of Ontario county, 
and Lewis F. Allen, of Erie county, are hereby appointed as commissioners under 
this act, and with powers and duties as hereinafter enumerated. 

§ 4, In the event of any such disease as the rinderpest or any infectious disease 
of cattle or sheep breaking out or being suspected to exist in any locality in this 
State, it shall be the duty of all persons owning or having any interest whatever 
in the said cattle, immediately to notify the said commissioners or any one of 
them of the existence of such disease ; whereupon the said commissioners shall 
establish a sanitary cordon around such locality. And thereupon it shall be the 
duty of the said commissioners to appoint an assistant commissioner for such dis. 
trict, with all powers conferred by this act on the said commissioners or their 
agents or appointees, which said assistant commissioner shall immediately proceed 
to the place or places where such disease is reported to exist, and cause the said 
animal or animals to be separated from all connection or proximity with or to all 
other animals of the ruminant order, and take such other precautionary measures 
as shall be deemed necessary ; and if, in his opinion, the said disease shall be 
incurable or threaten to spread, to cause the animals aforesaid immediately to 
be slaughtered, their remains to be deeply buried, and all places in which the said 
animals have been confined or kept, to be cleansed and disinfected by any of the 
agencies above mentioned ; and also to cause the same to be carefully locked or 
barred so as to prevent all access to the same by any animals of a like kind for a 
period of at least one month. Any animal thus slaughtered shall be appraised 
under the supervision of said commissioners, and one-half of the value of said 
animal shall be paid by the State to the owner thereof. 

§ 5. It shall be the duty of the said assistant commissioner, immediately on his 
being notified of his appointment, or at any time thereafter, of the breaking out 
of the said disease in any place contiguous to the same and within the county in 
which he resides, to give public notice of the same, in at least one newspaper printed 
or published in the said county, and to cause notices to be posted up in at least five 
conspicuous places in said neighborbood ; and it shall be his duty to enjoin, in said 
notice and otherwise, all persons concerned in the care or supervision of neat cattle 
or sheep, not to come within one hundred feet of the said locality without the 
special permission of the said assistant commissioner. 

§ 6. It shall be the duty of the commissioners appointed under this act, whenever 
they are advised that any such disease has made its appearance within the limits 
of the State, to publish in the State paper and in at least one paper published in 



FIEST EEPOET. 7 

any county where sucli disease exists, a statement of tlie methods approved by 
the New York State Agricultural Society for the treatment of cattle affected 
therewith, for the isolation of the same, for the disinfection of the premises or 
buildings in which said cattle are found affected as aforesaid, and for the preven- 
tion of the spread of the same through any agencies of whatever kind. 

§ 7. The commissioners aforesaid and all such assistants as they may appoint, 
whenever in their j udgment or discretion it shall appear in any case that the dis 
ease is not likely to yeld to any remedial treatment, or whenever it shall seem that 
the cost or worth of any such remedial treatment shall be greater than the value 
of any animal or animals so affected, or whenever in any case such disease shall 
assume such form of malignity as shall threaten its spread by processes either con- 
tagious or infectious, or otherwise, are hereby empowered to cause the said animals 
to be slaughtered forthwith and buried, as above provided, and to do all such 
things as are mentioned in the fourth section of this act. 

§ 8. The said commissioners or their assistants are hereby empowered to enter 
upon and take possession of all premises or parts thereof where cattle so affected 
as aforesaid are found, and to cause the said cattle to be confined in suitable inclos- 
ures or buildings for any time requisite in the judgment of the said commission- 
ers or their assistants, and prior to the slaughter and burial of the said animals 
and the full and complete disinfecting and cleansing of such premises ; and all 
persons, whether owners of, or interested in such cattle or otherwise, who shall 
resist, impede or hinder the said commissioners or their assistants in the execu, 
tion of their duties under this act, shall be deemed guilty, and on conviction of the 
same, of a misdemeanor, and shall be punishable with fine not exceeding one thou- 
sand dollars, or imprisonment not exceeding the term of six months, or of both, 
in the discretion of the court before which they shall be adjudged guilty as 
aforesaid. 

§ 9. The commissioners shall have power to establish all such quarantine or 
other regulations as they may deem necessary to prevent the spread of the disease 
or its transit in railroad cars, by vessels or by driving along the public highways ; 
and it shall be proper for the Governor of the State, by public proclamation as 
aforesaid, to enjoin all persons concerned or engaged in the traffic or transit of cattle 
or sheep, not to enter upon any places or take therefrom any such animal or to 
pass through any such locality, and within such distances from the same as in the 
said proclamation may be prescribed. 

§ 10. The sum of one thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary, 
is hereby appropriated to pay to the said commissioners for their services while 
actually engaged in the duties enjoined upon them in this act, at the rate of five 
dollars per day to each, and such further sums as may amount to their actual 
expenditures in traveling to and from the places they may be called upon to 
inspect or visit, and in the printing or publishing of all regulations or notices 
mentioned in this act. And the further sum of fifteen thousand dollars, or so 
much thereof as may be necessary, is hereby appropriated out of any money in 
the treasury, not otherwise appropriated, to pay for animals slaughtered by the 
provisions of this act, and the Comptroller is hereby directed to pay for the same 
on the warrant of the said commissioners. 



8 EINDEEPEST. 

§ 11. The assistant commissioners are to receive for each, and every day while 
actually engaged in duties provided by this act, the sum of three dollars per day, 
and all actual expenses and disbursements paid or incurred in the discharge of 
their duties as aforesaid, which said sums shall be a charge upon the county for 
which he is appointed, and shall, when duly audited by the board of supervisors 
of the said county, be paid by the county treasurer. 

§ 13. The slaughtering of animals for beef after having been exposed to the con- 
tagion, or supposed to have been so exposed, may be permitted by the commis- 
sioners or prohibited by them, as they may judge proper. 

§ 13. This act shall take effect immediately, and shall continue in force for one 
year. 



SECOND REPORT. 



New Yokk State Agricultural Rooms, ) 
Albany, Jxme \bth, 1866. ) 

The Committee of the Executive Board, in presenting their report 
on the remaining portion of the subject of the Rinderpest as referred 
to them, desire to acknowledge access to various other publications 
and treatises, on this and kindred diseases, than those mentioned in 
their preliminary report. Of these they would especially notice the 
essay of Layard, on the distemper of 1745-57 ; the report of Jessekt 
(now Counsellor of State and Director and Professor of the Veterin- 
ary College of Charkow) to the Russian Government, on the results 
of inoculation as a method of cure and extirpation of the disease ; 
the inquiry into the Pathology and Treatment of the Cattle Plague, 
by Alfred C. Pope, Esq., and the Sequel to the Report made to the 
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. 

Others are referred to in the body of the report. They ought not, 
to overlook the elaborate treatise of John Gamgbe, Principal 
of the Albert Veterinary College, London, &c., although the greater 
portion of this report was prepared for the press before access 
to his work. It exhibits large research and is of the highest value, 
when detailing his own independent observations or the investigations 
of others of equal science and repute. In addition to the topics dis- 
cussed by other writers, this volume contains the debates of ,the 
International Veterinary Congresses (held at Hamburg in 1863, and 
at Vienna in 1865), on quarantine, diseases of cattle requiring police 
regulation, &c. Appended are papers by Drs. Beale and Cobbold 
on the entozoa found in the muscles after death, &c. It will be 
seen that we have drawn upon this volume by copious notes; that 
in our discussion of the pathology frequent reference has been made 
to Gamgee's observations and those of his co-adjutors ; and that under 
the head of treatment, one of his remarkable experiments has been 
employed, as we trust, after a method which may result in robbing 
this plague of some of its terrors. 

Of the works referred to in the first report, that of Dr. Smart, of 
Edinburgh, with its splendid pathological illustrations, has been most 
2 



10 RINDERPEST. 

invaluable to your committee in the delineation of symptoms and 
morbid anatomy. These illustrations, with many of those of Jessek 
and Gamgee, have been copied and re-arranged, and will, doubtless, 
in their reprint, confirm to the eye of the reader the marked struc- 
tural lesions of this disease. 

Careful examinations have also been made of the description of the 
pathological lesions in cholera by Perigoff, and of those of diseases 
generally by Lebeet and others, in order, if possible, to attain some 
basis on which to rest the comparative pathology of the Pest. 

A masterly article by Egan, of Pesth, a practical agriculturist 
(jBConom) of Hungary, who has had a large experience in the man- 
ageinent of cattle and the treatment of this and other diseases which 
are rife in that region, is appended to the second report of the Royal 
Commissioners. It is to be regretted, that only that part of the 
article, as prepared by him, touching the Rinderpest, was forwarded 
by Lord Bloomfield for the use of the English Commission, as it is 
believed that Egan's discussion of the various forms of Anthrax, and 
of the Epizootic known in Hungary as the blood plague, would 
have thrown additional light on some portion of the labors of your 
committee. 

With the materials before them, your committee have encountered 
a vast mass of variant statements and conflicting opinions as to 
observed phenomena, whether referring to symptoms, diagnostic signs, 
preventive or remedial agencies. Your committee have desired that 
their labors might lessen this confusion, and have aimed, in their 
classification of the various symptoms, to present the disease in its 
leading characteristics. Pursuing such a course, and seeking aid from 
the most recent investigations made by modern science on the action 
of blood-poisons and fungoid germs, your committee hope that their 
labors* may be of essential service to the Society, and through it to 
the State Commissioners, to whom, in the event of an outbreak of 
the Pest in this State, such vast interests have been intrusted. 
In behalf of the committee, 

A. B. CONGER. 

*Much care has 156611 given in the revision of the processes of Mr. Tolle, the artist, to whose 
skill the lithographing in colors of the illustrations, has been committed. The time occupied 
in the attempt to make them faithful copies of the originals, the happy freedom which this 
country has enjoyed from any outbreak of this fearful pest, the desire of allaying apprehensions 
too easily excited, and the necessity of reprinting a large portion of the text to conform with 
the size (8 vo.) of the plates stricken off at a large expense, will account, in some measure, for 
the delay in issuing to members of the society, copies of this Second Report. 



EIISTDERPEST, 



ITS HISTORY, PATHOLOGY AND TEEATMENT. 



Diseases of animals are either epizootic or enzootic. This 
classification corresponds to that of the maladies which affect 
the human race, epidemic and endemic. 

The former of each class have been defined as dependent 
upon ov originating in some particular condition (constitu- 
tioaeris) of the atmosphere, and as attacking a num'ber of indi- 
viduals at the same time. Thus they differ from the latter 
of each class, which are described as of purely local origin, 
at least in the first instance, and as comparatively limited or 
isolated in their development. 

Diseases, however, that are at first endemic or enzootic, 
may break out at a time when their diffusion is favored by 
currents of the atmosphere ; when its condition by lowering 
the tone increases the susceptibility of the patient ; or when 
chemical or other changes affect its normal constitution, and 
so develop fresh food for the local malaria. Then, these dis- 
eases become epidemic or epizootic. 

Most of such diseases exhibit this further peculiarity of de- 
veloping in their course a malignant virus or miasm (per- 
chance infinitesimal germs, with all the subtle rancor and 
prolific power of a fungous growth), which spread through 
or float on the atmosphere, intensifying the original power of 
the ^^materies morhi,^^ whether originally local or not, and 
thus these maladies are infectious. But frequently it happens 
that the poison may be propagated by touch or direct applica- 



12 EINDEEPEST. 

tion to absorbent surfaces, by inoculation or the like, and 
thus the disease may be not only infectious, but contagious 
also.* 

We do not present this distinction as disposed to cope 
with any of the vexed questions in the schools, but simply 
(as the sequel will show the Einderpest to be capable of prop- 
agation by both methods) to guard, in the case of this disease 
at least, against the erroneous impression that it must be 
communicable, if at all, in one way or the other, and cannot 
be by both. Before, however, demonstrating that the great 
variety of observed facts do not sustain any such delusive 
view, it is desirable to trace the pest from its earliest appear- 
ance to its present formidable development in Great Britain. 

I. HISTORY. 

The Rinderpest had its origin on the Asiatic part of the 
steppes of Eussia, more, it is said, than one thousand years 
ago, and in the times of Charles the Great. These steppes 
(from the Eussian word "step," signifying a desert or dry 
plain) are natural feeding grounds, not unlike the lands of 
. Guienne in France, the heaths of l^orthern Germany, and 
in many respects like the prairies of the Great West. In 
these steppes are now roving from eight to ten millions of 
cattle, more than half being reserved for market as fat cattle. 
Though the greater part of these immense ranges is more or 
less arid, that portion of the Asiatic steppe between the 
rivers Yolga and Don is marshy and generally accounted to 
be the local source of the infection. Be this as it may, no 
part of the steppes, or it is said of Southern Eussia (and the 
same may be affirmed of the Hungarian steppes, stretching 

* The absence of any verb in tbe English language corresponding to the term contagion 
accounts for the use of the verb "infect," as indicative of the action of contagion as well as 
infection; hence these terms are frequently used as synonymous. Physiologists recognize the 
distinction aimed at in the test, though some using infection or contagion convertibly, attempt 
to make the necessary classification as immediate or mediate, contactual or remote. This may 
serve for such diseases, on the one hand, as syphilis, framboesia, lepra, itch and the like, or for 
diseases transmissible from the lower animals, as hydrophobia, and on the other hand, for influ- 
enza, malarious or other fevers, &c. But it does not serve as well as the distinction in the text 
for diseases whose poisonous principle is equally efficient, whether by immediate application to 
the skin, &c., or by absorption through the atmosphere ; as, for example, small-pox, hospital 
gangrene, plague, &c., or of glanders, as an instance of transmissible disease. 



■ HISTORY. 13 

from Yienna eastward of Pestli) is wholly free at any time 
from this noxious distemper, although there are long periods 
when it is measurably kept in abeyance. 

We may venture to doubt the reliability of the assertions 
made in regard to the antiquity of this pest in the steppes, 
because Professor Simonds admits, in his testimony before 
the Eoyal Commission (1st Eep., p. 7), that no symptoms 
of the disease, as it is said to have shown itself in the 
mediaeval period, are sufficiently described to identify it with 
the malady as now existent. When the records of its identity 
were first made, or where they are to be found, we are at 
a loss to divine. We have met with no elucidation of these 
topics, nor of the kindred inquiry, whether the present dis- 
ease is, by a law of modification operating from age to age, 
presenting, during its present cycle, a new phase or a totally 
distinct manifestation. And yet it is clear, that those who 
hold the theory of identity, if baffled in its maintenance by 
symptoms and morbid phenomena which show variance and 
disparity not only in degree but in kind, should be prepared 
to defend the theory of transition from one species of viru- 
lent brooding disease to another. But of this anon, when 
we come to the pathological investigation of the Pest. 

As to its origin or its native home we are in less doubt. 
Professor Eenault, president of the veterinary school of 
Alfort, in his memoir to the French minister of agriculture, 
has, after a thorough investigation, established the fact that 
this steppe-murrain never broke out spontaneously {i. e. as an 
enzootic) in any country or locality but that of the Eussian 
steppes, and, as we have before intimated, in the Asiatic part 
thereof. 

He also asserts that its transmission to other parts of the 
civilized world has been directly by cattle contaminated with 
the poison when they left their native pastures ; poison, as 
we may suppose, if not already brought in contact with the 
blood-corpuscles, at least lying ensconced in hair or on hoof, 
furtively awaiting the fatal lick or smell that ensures its ab- 
sorption by the system. It is very easy to imagine how a 
virus of this sort might, on this theory, work out all the 



14 EINDEEPEST. 

terrible ravages that have actually resulted, when we under- 
stand that these cattle are moved from their pastures in 
immense droves, sometimes numbering one hundred thou- 
sand, and how, as they migrate towards the southern and 
western borders of Russia, developing and leaving behind 
them poisonous excretions, they thus distribute the plague 
throughout Poland, Galicia and Hungary. Thence the x>as- 
sage to Western Europe is comparatively easy, unless the 
cordon has been -tightly drawn or the pole-axe vigorously 
swung. Thanks to such methods established by decrees at 
Berlin during the present century, the disease has never (says 
Prof. Gerlach, 1st Eep., p. 25), when it has broken out in 
Poland, and sometimes appeared in Posen, Silesia and East 
Prussia, advanced since 1815 as far west as Brandenburgh. 

In 1841 it penetrated into Egypt by cattle bought by the 
Pacha from Annatolia and Karamania, resulting in the deso- 
lating loss to that country of 350,000 cattle. During the 
Crimean war, and by the infection brought by Russian cattle 
into the Crimea, it was there fully developed; the French 
losing at Samsoun 8,000 out of 17,500 beasts, and the Eng- 
lish 4,000 out of 10,000, a loss ranging from 40 to 45 per cent.^ 
The mortality in some parts of Europe has risen to 94 per 
cent., and in some local ties not a single animal was saved.* 

As the present apprehension of the outbreak of this plague 
in this country has arisen from its recent spread in England 
and Scotland, we will now present an outline of its rise and 
proi^agation in those kingdoms. 

It is generally known in this country that the farmers of 
Great Britain do not raise food enough for its population. 
But it may surprise many to learn that the annual value of 
produce imported, to supply this deficiency, is estimated on 
very accurate data, at upwards of forty millions of pounds 
sterling. It is believed that the prominent items in this 

* The number attacked in the Austrian dominions was 296,000, of which 152,000 died. In 1863 
it again invaded Galicia (in which Country Prof. Simonds first saw the disease in 1857), Hungary 
and its dependencies, fourteen per cent of all the cattle in those countries taking the infection, 
and the average mortality as given in Schmidt's Jahrbuch for 1865 was as follows : Hungary, 65 
per cent ; East Galicia, 77 per cent; Croatia and Slavonia, 81.6 per cent ; Military Frontier 83 per 
cent ; Moravia, 88 per cent ; Lower Austria, 92 per cent ; West Galicia, 94 per cent ; Burowina 
and Styria (in which but a comparatively small number were attacked), 100 per cent. (Ist 
Eep., p. 11.) 



HISTORY. 15 

extraordinary expenditure consist of cattle, meat, butter, 
poultry, &c. Most of the beef class of imports come through 
Holland and Belgium. Prior to 1865 but one Importation 
direct from Eussia is known to have been made into any port 
of Great Britain, and this into that of London on 4th July, 
1860. But indirectly large numbers of Hungarian and Gali- 
cian cattle have been brought to English markets ; more of 
late years, as the completion of two great lines of railroads, 
which traverse Central and Southern Germany, and connect 
Hamburg and Rotterdam with Vienna and Lemburg, furnish 
quick transit for these supplies. (See 1st Eeport, p. 7.) The 
immunity which England has enjoyed, prior to 1865, in such 
importations, is traceable to the rigorous police measures 
established in Western Europe, and to the fact that the 
incubative stage of the Rinderpest rarely extends beyond a 
week. 

But it seems that two importers of cattle, Messrs. Honck 
and Baker were induced by the representations of a Mr. 
Burchell, who subsequently acted as their agent, and, in 
expectation of a profit of one hundred per cent, to make a 
contract with the Esthonian Agricultural Societj^ for a. large 
number of sheep and cattle ; the latter to weigh at least one 
thousand pounds each, and to be delivered at Revel after the 
ice had broken up in the Baltic. As some of the beeves 
offered did not come up to the contract weight, forty-six were 
sent down from the neighborhood of St. Petersburg, from 
which the agent was to choose. These being on their arrival 
much bruised, having been transported in four-horse wagons, 
and deemed by him not fit for the London market, three 
experts or judges were appointed by the local magistrates to 
say how many were in a suitable condition to take ; and 
thirteen were so adjudged. These, with the Esthonian cattle 
which passed muster, made in all three hundred and twenty- 
two ; but as one died in the yard before shipment, only three 
hundred and twenty-one sailed from Revel, on the 22d day of 
May, 1865, in the " Tonning." This steam vessel landed at 
Copenhagen to await orders whether, in view of the then 
state of the markets, the owners desired her to proceed to 



16 EINDEEPEST. 

London, Hull, or any other ports, and in obedience to instruc- 
tions slie put in for Hull ; at which place she discharged, on the 
28th day of May, three hundred and twenty cattle seemingly 
sound, and one which had sickened on the passage.* One 
hundred and forty-six of this number were sold for immediate 
slaughter at three different market towns, from none of which 
has any disease been traced ; twenty were picked out by Mr. 
Baker to go to Gosport for like use and with a like result. 
The remaining one hundred and fifty-five arrived at London 
on 29th or 30th day of May, were placed in Mr. Honck's 
lairs, and sold in the Metropolitan market on the 1st of 
June. On inquiries addressed by the Eoyal Commission to 
the purchasers of these animals, they were all sound beef 
when slaughtered, as far as appearances could lead such 
judges to determine the fact. 

We turn for a moment to another lot of cattle which have 
been supposed to have had considerable agency in dissem- 
inating the contagion throughout England. Twenty- three 
head of fat cattle were sent from Schiedam, in Holland, by a 
Mr. Defries, to his son a salesman in the Metropolitan 
market, which were sent into the market on 22d, 26th and 
29th days of June, twelve of them thrice, the remaining 
eleven only twice.* The markets of June being unusually 
dull, more animals than was customary were left unsold at 
the close of markets, and sent back to the yards where they 
lodged, which generally have sheddings attached, and are 
called lairs. This lot of twenty-three were placed in the 
lairs of a Mrs. Nichols at Islington, which adjoin the cattle 
yards used by many drovers bringing stock to the Metropo- 
litan markets. As the prices offered for this lot of Dutch 
cattle were not satisfactory, they were, on the 2d day of 
July, reexported to Holland. 

On the 27th day of June, a cow belonging to Mrs. Mchols 
(who had at this date a herd of ninety-three, which, with 

* Prof. Gamgee (in 1st Hep., 102), says that this one was kept by Mr. Burchell on brandy and 
water during the passage to Hull, recovered from the attack, and was sold for £11. As confirm- 
atory of the opinion that these animals brought down from St. Petersburg had the seeds of the 
Rinderpest in them, he has ascertained that a butcher at Eevel was obliged to kill thirteen of 
those that remained. 



HISTOET. 17 

sixteen or seventeen more purchased subsequently, were all 
destroyed by Einderpest), sickened and died, as was supposed 
by the owner from poison. Two cows which on the 19th of 
June* were purchased in the Metropolitan market by a Mr. 
Baldwin, of Hackney, died of the same disease, one on the 
29th of June, and within twenty-four hours after she was 
observed to be ailing ; and the other on the 5th day of July. 
These three cases were attended by Mr. Priestman, a vete- 
rinary surgeon, who with a son of Mrs. Mchols brought 
the stomach and intestines of a cow of the latter to Prof. 
Simonds at the college, on the 4th of July, for examination. 
The Professor was also requested to inspect the herd and the 
premises, which he did with great care ; had another animal 
killed, and took its stomach and appendages and some water 
from a well recently opened, to the college for examination. 
On the 9th day of July he was fully satisfied that these ani- 
mals and others reported at that date had died of the same 
disease which he had observed in Galicia in 1857. 

Twenty-one of the Defries cattle died shortly after their 
arrival at Schiedam, it having been observed before their 
departure that they were out of health. Moreover the plague 
was communicated to the stock of a Mr. Vandervelden, 
grazing in a pasture adjoiningt that in which the Defries 
cattle had been placed ; and the owner of the stock contam- 
inated in this wise had, in utter ignorance thereof, sold 
upwards of twenty, which were exported to Norfolk. 

To return to Mr. Baldwin's stock. In twelve days after 
his first loss his herd of twenty animals was reduced to ten, 
his saving up to that time of fifty per cent being attributable 
to the immediate slaughter of each animal on showing the 
first symptoms of the pest. 

In a brief review of these statements (as it is impossibly 
in this sketch, to give all the particulars which go to confirm 

* Prof. Gamgee states that the running from the eyes and nose, and the drooping and other 
primary symptoms, were observed in the marliet as early as the 14th of June, and gives the 
history of two Dutch cows bought there on the 19lh, which went to Lambeth Walk, and com- 
municated the disease in that neighborhood, one of them sickening shortly after the purchase 
(1st Rep., p. 103.) 

+ Prof. Gerlach states that this pasture was full one thousand paces from that in which the 
Defries cattle were placed. 

3 



18 EINDERPEST. 

the conclusion) the only animals wliicli could have conveyed 
Eiuderpest directly to English stock were brought into the 
Metropolitan market; from which those that developed the 
contagion earliest were sent to three places, two in Eng- 
land and one in Holland, where it was definitely recog- 
nized. And although an interval of nineteen days has to be 
accounted for, there seems to be little difficulty in accepting 
the theory of Prof. Simonds (1st Eeport, 1-20), that the pesti- 
lence was in its state of incubation in one or more of the 
thirteen animals sent down from St. Petersburg to fill out 
the contract of the Esthonian Society ; that it was developed 
in the lot brought to the Metropolitan market ; thence spread 
to Mrs. Nichols' lairs at Islington, and to Mr. Baldwin's 
farm at Hackney, on or before the 20th of June, and through 
the Hutch cattle into Norfolk early in July. Even if the 
impression, as communicated by the English Oonsul-General 
at Hamburg (1st Eep., x>. 7), and based upon the opinion, of 
Mr. Schrader, a veterinary in the special employ of the 
Hamburg government, be correct, that the Einderpest was 
develoxjed by Hungarian cattle sent from Vienna to Utrecht 
early in May ; this would require proof of the transmission 
of some of these cattle, or of others infected by them, to the 
Metropolitan market in order to account for the earliest 
observed outbreaks of the plague which we have given. H 
true, this theory would only show a double source of infec- 
tion concentrating at a common j)oint and thence to be dif- 
fused. Suffice it to say, that in a very short space of time 
from its outbreak in Islington, the Einderpest appeared in 
' Suffolk and Shropshire. Before the end of Julj^ it had 
invaded Scotland,* and by the 14th of October it had ex- 
tended into twenty-nine counties in England, two in Wales 
and sixteen in Scotland, and resulted in six months in a loss 
of two hundred thousand animals, and within nine months of 
three hundred thousand at the lowest calculation ; an enormous 



* Prof. Dick says that the infection in Edinburgh came from a herd of Dutch cattle brought 
down from London, two of which were bought by a cow-feeder named Ogg, and lodged in hia 
byres; and that these developed the disease on the Sth of August, all the animals Ogg had 
dying except the twofoi'eign cattle, which recovered. (1st Eep., p. 120.) 



IIISTOET. 19 

havoc, resulting mainly from a neglect to establisli, as has 
been shown in the preliminary report, efficient sanitary 
cordons. 

It is conceded that it is by no means an easy task to trace 
with exactitude the subtle course of a pestilence which thus 
dashed with rapid and fatal strides through the herds of 
Great Britain as it had previously held on in its mad career 
on the Continent. ISTor less difficult does it seem to arrange 
and classify the various statements given as to the mediate 
instrumentalities of its spread. Too much concurrent testi- 
mony exists, however, of the poison being carried, on the 
persons and clothes of attendants, diffused by excretions from 
the mucous surface, the skin and the bowels of diseased 
subjects ; sometimes caught upon the wings of birds or cling- 
ing to their claws, so that falling plumes or alighting tracks 
might contaminate green pastures or farmsteads kept scrupu- 
lously clean — to cast a prudent doubt upon what would seem 
to partake only of the marvelous and fanciful. Proof may be 
deficient to show that in many cases the pest has been com- 
municated, as some have affirmed, through the antennae of 
flies crowding together on the glairy mucus exuding from 
eyes, nostrils or vagina ; or conveyed on the hair or feet of 
horses, cattle or dogs beyond the limits of developed conta- 
gion ; or by like secondary agencies, and to a locality suf- 
ficiently remote, for its spread by gradual or ordinary diffnsion. 
Yet it is asserted on evidence seemingly beyond impeach- 
ment, to wit, on the statement of the Governor of Silesia 
to Prof. Simonds (1st Eep., p. 3), that the outbreak in that 
province occurred in consequence of a carpenter's ijassing 
surreptitiously the frontier cordon from Galicia, in order to 
visit his father, and incautiously mending a manger in the 
cow sheds ; thus communicating the seeds of the disease, 
which in a few days broke out in what had been prior to 
that time a perfecty healthy district.* 

* Gamgeb was assured that a common cause of wicle-spread outbreaks, was the practice .of 
calling priests and people together, to pray in the cattle sheds, that the plague might be sta3''ed, 
and the assembled people moving thence from farm do farm. He also quotes the authority of 
VicQ d' Azte, as to the infection of the 18th century, to show that where clothes of attendants 
on diseased cattle were placed on healthy ones, three animals out of six would be seized with 
the disease. (Cattle Plague, p. 37.) 



20 BINDERPEST. 

Also, it is gravely stated in a communication on the nature 
of this disease, transmitted to Lord Bloomfield, and by 
him to the Home Government, that with a straw from an 
infected stable, half a dozen healthy stables could be infected. 
All such statements may be grouped together as sufiScient, 
if not incontestable, testimony of the ready communicability 
of this poison by contact, and other instrumentalities of con- 
tagion proper. 

But when we learn that it is also conveyed by currents of 
the atmosphere, as in instances where, for a distance of 
three miles, it was carried by a strong prevailing wind (the 
air being charged with much moisture) from byres where 
the disease existed, to perfectly healthy herds ; or where, from 
the same causes, it has overleaped all quarantine regulations, 
we have sufficient evidence of its dissemination by currents 
of the atmosphere, and thus being propagated in accordance 
with the laws of infection proper.* 

We have adduced at this time these items of evidence as 
to the easy and rapid diffusion of the Einderpest, in order 
to supply as best we may any seeming defect in the testi- 
mony laid before the English commission to make out the 
historical proof of the dissemination throughout Great Britain 
of the germs of this murrain from the Esthonian importation. 
We may thus seem to trench too rapidly upon a discussion 
properly pathological, and to anticipate the handling of our 
second main division to which we will at once proceed. 

* Prof. Brown gives in his testimony (1st Rep., p. 21) an account of the outbreak at Whitwell as 
from some beasts bought in the Metropolitan market, on the 1st of July, and its transference to 
Thimble Thorpe, a distance of three miles, as well as other places at leaet equally distant, where 
there "could not be traced any direct contagion, and no direct contact with diseased animals." 
He thinks it quite possible that the contagion could be carried by flies. He was also cognizant of 
the attack on the stock of Miss B. Coutts and Lord Granville, in pastures quite private. 
In the first case thei'e were diseased animals three-quarters of a mile off, and the outbreak occur- 
red a short time after a thunder storm, when the wind blew from the infected places. Yet sheep 
in an adjoining pasture had been several times in the market. In the latter case, where only 
seven out of one hundred and thirty remained, Mr. Panter, the -bailiff, holding to the theory 
that the diseases of 1865 and 1745 were the same, and with some show of consistency, because he 
believed that the pest broke out spontaneously in the London cow shed, during the hot weather 
of June ; states that the nearest place where the plague existed prior to its discovery in the 
stables, under his care, was 400 yards off. He states also that pleuro-pneumonia was chronic on 
the farm, *' Lord Granville never having been a month without it in the last four years." 



PATHOLOGY. 21 

II. PATHOLOGY. 

This branch of our subject we propose to consider under 
the ordinary classification of Descriptive (A) and General 
(B), designing further to subdivide the former by treating 
first of the symptoms (A 1,) or descriptive appearance of the 
disease as it is manifested in the infected animal before 
recovery or death, and next of the morMd anatomy (A 2), or 
description of the lesions revealed by post mortem dissections. 

In a few cases, taken from Jessen's Eeport {Bericlit . Imp- 

fimgen der Rinderpest) on the results of the inoculative 
methods, we have for convenience given the symptoms and 
post mortem revelations conjointly. Further historical ref- 
erence to other murrains, and the consideration of their 
destructive characteristics as compared with the Pest, will be 
reserved for the general discussion. 

As we derive our knowledge of the symptoms and morbid 
anatomy of this distemper from authorities recognized as 
such in England and on the continent, of whom we may 
enumerate Smart, Wood, Simonds, A. & J. Gamgee, Simon, 
Pope, Gerlach, Egan and Jessen ; where there are con- 
flicting or independent statements, we will subjoin to such 
the name of each authority. 

(A 1.) SYMPTOMS. 
These will be arranged after the following classification 
of the several stages or periods of the disease : 1st. Incuia- 
tion; 2d, External symptoms; 3d. The Congestive Period; 
and 4th. That of Besolution. 

1st Incubation. 
From the time of the first introduction of the poison into 
the system, until the development of the external symptoms, 
a period elapses of several days, which is known as the incu- 
bative stage of the disease. The time assigned by different 
authorities varies considerably, though there is but little doubt 
that we may fix this period in the majority of cases as one of 
six days. This is the time assigned by Smart and Wood. 
Egan states it from four to eight days. (2d Eep., p. 79.) 



22 EINDEEPEST. 

The period of incubation varies according to the mode of the intro- 
duction of the poison ; where the disease is inoculated, I believe it is 
four or five days ; but where it is caught in the usual manner, from 
eight to ten days. (J. Simon.) 

In the inoculation cases which I have had, it has usually averaged 
from six to eight days, and not beyond that. It cannot be longer 
than ten days, if ever so long. (J. Gamgee.) 

It is seldom less than seven days, and it may be extended to foui*- 
teen or fifteen days, or perhajjs to a longer period than that. (Simonds, 
1st Rep., p. 16.) 

The period of incubation is generally from five to seven days, 
though in rare cases it may be more. (Gerlach, from personal observ- 
ation, 1st Rep., p. 20.) 

The evidence as to the internal development of this dis- 
ease in its primary stage, is drawn principally from j)ost- 
mortem observations of animals slaughtered soon after 
exposure to the contagion, and attests the fearful rapidity 
with which it is absorbed. And first it is stated that within 
thirty-six or forty-eight hours after inoculation, the blood is 
so thoroughly contaminated that a single drop is sufficient 
to develop the disease in all its malignity when employed 
as an inoculative medium, though Gerlach states that 
blood is rarely, if ever used, as the secretions of the eyes, 
nose and mouth are, in the remedial agency of inoculation. 
(1st Eep., p. 20.) 

Invariably, in the early stage, even before the vulva and mouth 
have become affected, the lining membrane of the fourth stomach, 
and of the whole intestinal canal from that stomach downwards, 
shows appearance of disease. This is indicated by what is at first a 
mere blush of redness on the surface of the lining membrane, quite 
appreciable, however, when compared with the j^ale, fawn-colored 
appearance found in the healthy state. (Wood.) 

The other stomachs soon sympathize with the condition of 
the fourth ; the rumen or paunch, and second stomach or reti- 
culum, are loaded with undigested food, and the third or 
many-plies is impacted with a mass which assumes the form 
of a large, round ball, and becomes, as the disease advances, 
a hard, dry mass. 



symptoms. 23 

2d. External Symptoms. 

As the incubative period declines, the primary symptoms 
visible to the eye occur in the following order : 

a. Loss of apiyetite^ exhibited, first in aversion to all sorts of 
green food, and on the following day in indifference to food of any 
kind. At first the animal leaves a poi'tion of its food, and then refuses 
it altogether. 

h. Rumination. The animal now ceases to chew its cud., and then 
there is manifest 

c. Constipation in its gradual development. The dung is of a dark 
color, sometimes covered with slime on its surface. [Many show 
signs of bellyache, by frequently looking round towards the tail and 
bending up the back.] (Egan.) 

d. Diminution of the flow of milk (much greater than in pleuro- 
pneumonia. Priestman.) 

External appearances are, first, 

1. Depression in looks, standing in the same posture, with 
drooping head and reclining ears. These, with the horns and 
other extremities, show a loss of natural heat. 

2. The first striking signs are manifest in a change of manner. 
Most commonly the beast is remarkably heavy and dull, hano-s 
its head, lowers its ears, stays behind the herd, and when in 
the stable keeps -away from the crib. (Egan.) Sometimes there 
is a shaking of the head to and fro. If you lift it up, it goes 
dovm again like a dead weight. (Ernes.) 

3. Sometimes an animal will be excited., uneasy, shaking its head, 
stamping with its feet, lowing frequently, butting with its horns, 
and running away from the herd. If tied up in the stable, it 
tears away from its chain and rope, and continually endeavors 
to go elsewhere. (Egan.) 

4. Trembling motions now occur of the head and neck; the 
hairs bristle up, especially on the back and towards the shoul- 
ders ; the insertions of the horns and ears are sometimes cold, 
sometimes warm ; the palate is dry ; the eyes shining, <fec. 
(Egan.) In the cases first observed in England by Professor 
SiMONDS, there were not the same nervous twitchings about 
them that had been observed in Galicia. (1st Rep., p. 9.) 

/, Respiration is slightly quickened, the expiration or outbreath 
is prolonged, and the pulse rises a few beats. (Smart.) Joined with 
a striking motion of the flanks and low groans, sometimes a 



24 EINDERPEST. 

short, dry cough supervenes, which is the cause of much uneasiness 
to the animal. (Egan.) In most cases a cough with great difficulty in 
breathing exists, the animal making more noise on expiration than in 
pleuro-pneumonia. (Gooch's account of symptoms of Dutch bullocks 
in Norfolk, communicated to Prof Simonds, 1st Rep., p. 10.) 

g. The Vulva (the external opening of the vagina or passage leading 
to the womb) assumes a reddish tinge (with generally a few bluish 
streaks — Wood), and the color deepens as the disease advances, these 
appearances furnishing in females the -inost reliable and distinctive 
external characteristics of the disease. (Smart and Wood.) 

h. The Mouth shows a faint, red or purple line on the under gum 
along the roots of the teeth, closing up the column of primary symp- 
toms within forty-eight hours. (Smai't.) The buccal membrane, par- 
ticularly at the junction of the interior of the lips with the gums, 
becomes abraded or excoriated — the membrane peels off in little irreg- 
ularly shaped spots, presenting a mouse-eaten or mouse-gnawed appear- 
ance. The papillae of the tongue and cheeks are enlarged. (Per Barron, 
V. S., Sequel, &c., p. 26.) 

In the vulva and moutli we have the distinctive sign of 
the Einderpest ; and in the latter the appearance can be 
readily distinguished from that observed in epizootic eczema 
or mouth and foot disease. 



3d. The Period of Congestion. 

This is the stage of the disease when the congestion, which 
has exhibited its earliest outbreak in the epithelial membranes 
covering the mucous surfaces of the fourth stomach and 
in part of the bowels, and then shown itself in the vulva and 
mouth, becomes active and pervades the entire system, show- 
ing in the first place a largely quickened action of the 

a. PiUse. The number of pulsations in health may be rated at 40 
to 45 per minute in the field, and 50 to 60 in the byre. The pulse 
now mounts up to 80, 90 and even 100 beats per minute (Wood) ; 60 
to 110 (Smart). Thirst and loss of appetite become more marked. 

h. Respiration becomes hurried^ and frequently labored and noisy, 
instead of from 18 to 20 per minute as in health the inspirations range 
each minute from 40 to 60 and considerably higher (Wood) ; 36 to VO 
(Smart). The respirations numbered 96 in an animal which recovered, 
and are often jerking in their character. (Pope.) 



SYMPTOMS. 25 

c. Temperattire of the body (externally) is lotcered, and deficient, 
requiring the use of blanketing, and that the temperature of the byre 
should be raised to 70° Fahr. (Smart.) 

d. Vital depressio7i is characteristic of this disease throughout its 
entire progress, and becomes manifest as the congestion is extending 
over the internal organs. 

e. ^xicdations from, the eyes (viscid, slimy tears — Egan), nose, mouth 
and vulva, form with rapidity, consisting of a glairy, ropy mucus, and 
indicating the extended congestion of the external membranes of 
these organs ; those of the mouth and vagina exhibiting apthw. The 
conjunctivae are congested, becoming, as the disease progresses, per- 
fectly turgid ; large plugs of dense ropy mucus being occasionally 
passed. The alte are more swollen and injected on their internal 
surface ; externally copper-colored and livid looking patches are 
observable, about the filth or sixth day, and in many instances a little 
earlier; the discharges become purulent alike from the canthi, the 
nostrils and the vagina. (Pope.) 

An abundant yellow or bloody, stringy discharge comes from the 
nostrils, which gradually becomes white and fetid, and a tough viscid 
slime also flows from the corners of the mouth, and at the same time 
there are found on the mucous membrane of the mouth, esijecially 
between the under lip and gums, small blisters which often cover the 
whole inside of the mouth ; the sick beast grinds its teeth, which are 
now very loose. (Egan.) 

/. The amcs is frequently very highly congested, presenting the ap- 
pearance of intense hemorrhoidal congestions. 

g. The urine is now not unfrequently loaded with blood, and is 
passed with considerable pain and difiiculty. (Pope.) 



4th. The Period of Eesolution^. 

The congestion is frequently favorably resolved by nursing 
and judicious treatment; by the strength of natural constitu- 
tion, overcoming easily at the outset the diffusion of the virus, 
and effecting what commonly passes for a light attack of the 
disease ; or, as frequently happens in a pregnant cow, by the 
concentration of the disease, in the foetus and uterine mem- 
branes, and consequent abortion. 

In all such cases the animal begins to look cheery, carries its ears 
forward, begins to take food and chew the cud. The milk returns 
4 



26 EINDEEPEST. 

and gradually assumes its natural appearance. The distinctive ap- 
pearances on the vulva and the inside of the mouth disappear very 
slowly. (Wood.) 

The attacks (of jDain, &c.,) gradually subside, the skin becomes 
warm and remains so, appetite and rumination return, looseness dimin- 
ishes, &c. 

In convalescence, a scabby erujition very often ajopears on the skin, 
accompanied by itching, especially on the nape of the neck or the 
sides of the neck, and on the back. (Egan.) This scabby eruption, 
sometimes also seen on the nostrils, and frequently met in other parts 
of the country, has ?iot been seen in more than a dozen cases that 
have been treated hommopathically in this neighborhood. (Pope.) 

If, however, from the virulence of the attack, or the lack 
of sufficient constitutional power to resist the disease, or from 
neglect and injudicious treatment, the jDcriod of congestion 
Is not relieved by any favorable indications, then follow the 
symptoms which result in death. 

Sometimes in the natural cou.rse of the disease, more frequently 
perhaps from the injudicious use of irritant purgatives, the constipated 
state of the bowels is changed to a diarrhoeic condition. The duns: 
becomes soft and pappy, and at length liquid, not unfrequeiitly colored 
with blood ; it is usually voided with little effort in small and frequent 
passages. (Egan.) " Diarrhoea, often dysenteric in its character, or 
thin, watery and offensive in the highest degree, sets in, and exhaus- 
tion, accompanied by intense restlessness, follows, and death takes 
place from simple exhaustion. Sometimes where symptoms seem to 
have imjDroved, the animal becomes suddenly more dull ; the head 
drops, the eyes look heavier, the conjunctivae are almost livid, the 
teeth are ground, the animal butts at everything within reach, often- 
times becoming furious, and suddenly dies." (Pope.) 

Again ; diarrhoea might set in on the second or third day, and 
about the fifth day it is generally fatal; but it begins by nervous 
symptoms, and these are so strong at times that a cow might be found 
dead in the morning without having been suspected to be ill at all. 
(Simonds.) 

On the other hand, constipation is attended not unfrequently with 
great distention of the abdomen, becomes obstinate and aggravates 
all the other symptoms. Respiration is now slow, very laborious, 
moaning or grunting, and the pulse slow and small. The superficial 
membrane of the mouth jDeels off from the gums and lips, leaving the 
surface raw. A similar action occasionally takes place in the intes- 



SYMPTOMS. 27 

tinal canal, i-esulting in a desquamation of its mucous surface in casts. 
In one case the entire epithelial lining of the small intestine, in a per- 
fect tube, was passed from the bowel and has been preserved. (Smai't.) 
The general weakness and leanness (of the body) makes rapid pro- 
gress, the eyes sink in, the sight is weak, air tumors rise in the back 
under the skin, groans and difficulty of breath become continually 
more violent, the ichorous discharge from the open fundament flows 
involuntarily, and finally the beast cannot stand any longer, but lies 
on its side with its head turned, until at once, generally, between the 
fifth and ninth day (in very bad cases between the third and fourth) 
death comes on with convulsions. (Egan.) 

The staring hide and arched back are not characteristic of the 
Rinderpest, but of pleuro-pneumonia ; but they occasionally make 
their appearance when the pest is complicated with the latter disease. 
(Smart.) 

On looking at the carcass the hair is seen bristling ; a whitish slime 
appears at the corners of the eyes and nostrils, partly dried to a 
bark; the hind cfuarters are much swollen ; the mucous membrane of 
the bowels projecting through the fundament is of a bluish red color, 
&c. (Egan.) 

We deem it judicious to add to the already extended 
account of general symptoms a few detailed cases taken 
from Jessen, of animals described numerically in his report ; 
because the accuracy of his details (as to time at least) may 
be of future benefit in the study of individual cases should 
the disease break out in this country. We have also added 
to the description of symptoms in each case, the ])ost mortem 
observations, that the symptoms and pathological appear- 
ances might be grouped together, and for the further reason 
that it may be desirable to separate the description of his 
inoculated cases from those given by Smart and others, and 
perchance distinguish between the English type of this mur- 
rain and that observed in some parts of the continent. 

No. 6 was a steppe cow, seven years old, sicMy before vaccination 
and in thin flesh. Woolen threads were saturated with the secretions 
(from eyes, &c.) of a yearling calf, and inserted as a seton on both 
sides of the neck and before the shoulders. 

Symptoms as follows : On Qth day, short, hacking cough. On 7th 
day, loss of vivacity, drooping head and hanging ears ; rumination 



28 EINDEEPEST, 

ceased ; shaking of head ; gnashing of teeth ; hair bristling and 
skin lying in folds. On the right side auscultation showed blow- 
ing murmurs ; and percussion, dullness. On same evening, eyes and 
nose began to run ; milk diminished and had strong salty taste ; res- 
piration and pulsation equal to 60 per minute. On 8th day these 
rose to 80 ; secretions increased ; ears and horns alternately hot 
and cold ; mouth hot ; chilliness over the whole body ; neither eat nor 
drank. On Qth day, respiration 100, with sighing ; left side of bowels 
tympanitic, but normal at six p. m., when pulse was 88 ; diarrhoea 
mixed with blood; aphthous appearance of vulva. On 10th day^ 
pulse ]08; respiration 50, and sighing; bloody diarrhoea; colliqua- 
tions from nose and eyes ; body cold, and death at six p. m. 

Post-mortem. Besides ordinary external appearances, the veins of 
the brain were engorged ; one of the lymphatics contained hard par- 
ticles ; hyperEemia in the base. Lungs full of air, not much reddened 
(emphysema in all the cellular tissues between the lobes) and con- 
tained many hydatids. Pericardium and heart normal. Mucous 
ononhrane of f mirth stomach (PI. IV, fig 2) violet in* some places ; in 
the folds ecchymoses shining through ; duodenum not much red- 
dened, and filled with bilious slime. Jejunmn (PI. VII, fig 1), colored 
blackish by pigment on the mucous membrane. Here and in the 
ileum the Peyerian glands raised and strongly injected. The capil- 
laries of the colon and cmcutn (PI. VIII. fig 1, giving a view of the 
mucous membrane of the latter), were injected, showing a gi-eat many 
red points and streaks, which were also found in the rectum, but 
7iowhere tdceration ; many ecchymoses in the small bowels, visible 
inside and outside ; mesenteric glands swollen and showing much 
pigment when cut through. In every one, as a proof of former 
ailment, chalky concretions from the size of a lentil to a pea. Liver 
full of hydatids ; ovaries, kidneys and bladder normal and their 
mucous membranes healthy. 

No. 14, a steppe calf of No. 6, nine months old, and placed beside 
his vaccinated mother, caught the infection naturally, and after 
twenty-seven days from first exposure seemed to have recovered, and 
was sent to a neighboring place to be herded with another lot of dis- 
eased animals. After twelve days it was started for home, and being 
led behind the wagon with a rope tied carelessly around its neck, it 
suifocated and was brought home dead. 

Post-mortem. Lungs partly hepatized with some small ulcers ; 
ventricles and auricles of the heart empty ; paunch distended ; third 
stomach hard, and when oj)ened epithelial lining adhered to the food ; 



SYMPTOMS. 29 

fourth stomach not reddened, but close to the pylorus there appeared 
a covered depression (with a light scab, which was loose at its peri- 
phery) with smooth rounded edges, apparently an ulcer (PI. II, fig 2) 
beginning to heal ^ small bowels contained slime and bile ; some intes- 
tinal glands showed hard elevatio7is of the size of a pea having a hollow 
on the top ; intestinal veins and those of the brain engorged ; liver, 
kidneys, bladder and brain sound. The immediate cause of death was 
vascular apoplexy from strangulation. The calf, though apparently 
recovered from the pest, had not overcome its sequelm. 

No. 8 Avas a two year old steppe ox, healthy* and in fine condition, 
vaccinated on left shoulder with three woolen threads saturated with 
fluid from tears of a Rinderpest subject. 

Symptoms as follows : On 6th day, loss of appetite ; rumina- 
tion suspended; ears and lips hot, the latter dry; p. m., loss of 
strength, with downcast looks. On Ith day, lying down, with 
head stuck out and tears in the eyes ; hair bristling ; pulse 88 ; 
respiration 36; inspiration slow; expiration quick; dung softer; 
great loss of strength during night ; at noon, gnashing of teeth 
and diarrhoea; pulse 92; respiration 40; at evening, shaking of 
head ; deep sighing inspirations, with pawing of the fore feet. On 
8th day, does not eat ; pulse 92 and small ; respiration 40 ; tears 
flowing profusely ; secretions from nose increased ; gnashing of teeth 
and shaking of head more frequent ; watery diarrhoea ; increased 
debility and great thirst ; pulse thinner ; secretions stringy and thick ; 
not so much head shaking ; diarrhoea frequent, with no foeces and sour 
smell ; mouth hot and covered with tough mucus. On 9th day, pulse 
98, small ; stroke of the heart hardly perceptible ; all symptoms exacer- 
bated ; mucous membrane of lips and anus full of erosions, on the first 
white, on the latter red, of varying size and form ; in the evening, pulse 
small and hardly to be felt ; respiration 46, with heaving in the 
flanks ; peculiar look of the dim eye ; frequent and severe shaking of 
the head; great thii'st. On lOth day -pulse 84 and fuller ; respiration 
more quiet and 36 ; animal more lively and strives to eat ; erosions 
around the anus spread to the scrotum ; at noon, diarrhoea increased, 
animal hardly able to stand ; pulse small and vacillating ; respira- 
tion 44 ; he wants to eat but cannot chew ; in evening, great moaning, 
and gnashing of teeth more frequent. On 11th day, he is more 
lively ; eye more lustrous ; pulse more full, 84 ; respiration 36 ; desire 
for food and drink ; death in the evening. 

Post-mortem- made before the body was quite cold. Great emacia- 
tion ; muscles of natural color ; fat normal and soft ; first and second 



30 EINDEEPEST. 

stomachs and oesophagus filled with greenish colored fluid ; cardium 
greatly distended ; when cut, contents Avere observed to fill the entire 
cavity of the chest. In nostrils was seen a free-lying exudation, 
havino: several small branches as if from the bronchiag. Cellular tissue 
of pericardium and mediastinum, and between the lobes of lungs dis- 
tended with air. Lungs bright red, parenchyma normal ; pericardium 
and heart healthy. In right ventricle very fluid red blood. Brain 
very soft ; great deal of blood under the dura mater ; no water in 
ventricles or spinal cavity ; bowels pale externally ; liver of normal 
color, very sanguineoijs ; gall bladder full of dark green gall ; spleen 
full of blood and soft. First and second stomachs contained little 
food, but much water ; membranes normal. Third stomach contained 
partly old, partly newly taken food (bran), perfectly normal. Fourth 
stomach full of soft food ; membrane loosened, in parts injected, espe- 
cially near the pylorus. The small bowels throughout showed in 
many places firm, elastic, fibrinous masses, yellow in color, products 
of the Peyerian glands. ( PL YI, figs 1 and 2, giving sections of the 
duodenum,, Avith one Peyer'^s gland and tico follicles in fig 2.) The 
fibrinous masses were also on solitary glands of the thickness of a line 
or more ; mucous membrane loosened and easily separated from the 
muscular coat. In caecum, colon and rectum, no fibrinous masses. 
Mesenteric glands pale, enlarged and hard. 

ISTo. 32, a steppe calf of nine months old, which after inoculation 
was severely sick and died suddenly ; symptoms not given. 

Post-mortem. Mouth free from erosions; nostril somewhat red- 
dened ; chest showed a few emphysematous spots ; heart full of coagula 
(clots) ; endocardium normal ; liver rather soft, containing some fibrin- 
ous masses ; gall-bladder full ; spleen full of blood ; kidneys normal ; 
first and second stomachs full of soft food, but normal ; third stomach 
of the form of a ball ; food dry and dark green ; epithelium not 
adherent; mucous coat of fourth stomach strongly injected, especially 
towards the pylorus, and contains thin, bilious slime, but no food ; 
mucous coat softened ; small bowels full of enormous fibrinous con- 
cretions. On Peyerian glands, thirty large plaques were counted, from 
pylorus to caecum, covered with exudations of three to foixr lines wide, 
sticking fast to the glands, even after sixteen hours maceration. Taken 
off, the place corresponding to the glands was dark red. The whole 
formed a mass, flattened on both sides, of yellow or red color, with 
alternating elevations and depressions, and corresponding to the 
length of the agglomeration of the glands. Usually there was a large 
tail of three to four inches of light yelloic exudation, showing in many 



MOEBID AJiTATOMT. 31 

places depressions, originating in the solitary follicles of the jejunum, 
which were reddened and hypersemical (PL VII, fig. 2). In the small 
bowels were many free exudatioiisVikQ polypus (PI. VIII, figs. 2 and 3), 
all loith these depressions. Before the bauhinian valve of the c^cum 
wei'e pulpy, macerated glands, of one and one-half inches in length. 
Large bowels contained thin fluid, light yellow and grey slime. Their 
coats were softened, with red spots (injected vessels), especially where 
the rectum begins. Mesenteric glands enlarged — externally grey, 
internally dark grey — containing much fluid and yellow fatty exuda- 
tions. Membi-anes of the brain and cerebellum strongly injected and 
softened. 

(A 2.) MOEBID AN"ATOMY. 

On the dissection of the carcass, which is considerably dis- 
tended with gases, a foul smell ;s experienced, which has a 
peculiar odor, and which is more intensely disgusting as the 
autopsy is extended into the abdominal cavity. It is highly 
characteristic, because if once experienced it cannot be mis- 
taken for the exhalations consequent upon the examination 
of animals dying from any other disease. The pathological 
appearances which follow are principally those obtained by 
Dr. Smart from dissections made at the Edinburgh Sana- 
torium and at Tyne Castle, of over one hundred animals. 
Wherever other authorities differ from Smart, we shall, under 
each head, note the discrepant statements, as these clearly 
reveal modifications of the disease as observed by Smart, 
depending upon differences of nervous susceptibility of con- 
stitution, perhaps of climatic influences ; different habits in 
regard to food, diet ; previous or concurrent lesions of other 
diseases, &c. 

I. Mouth, Pharynx and Gullet. The gums, lips, hard and soft 
palates, the under surface and root of the upper surface of the tongue, 
the \ij)per surface of the epiglottis, as also its membranous folds and 
the pharynx, are mai-ked, to a greater or less extent, by an aphthous 
eruption (PI. I, fig. 1), which is not xdcerous, as the subjacent mem- 
brane is entire.* The roughened and granulated aspect, as presented 
to the eye, is readily scraped ofi" and consists of accumidated epithe- 

* A like eruption equally characteristic of the disease is found at the external opening 
(vulva) of the vagina. (PI. II, fig. 1.) 



32 EINDEEPEST. 

Hum collecting on the surface of the membrane around the orifices 
of the follicles, and thus giving a punctated or honeycomb appearance 
resembling minute ulcers. The lesion does not extend beyond the 
pharynx (back mouth), into the gullet* (which exhibits no trace of 
disease), or into the air passages. The scaly epithelium from the under 
\\p of a diseased cow, as highly magnified is presented in PI. I, fig. 2, 
where some of it is rolled uj) into scrolls and cylindrical forms, and 
other parts show the proper flattened and nucleated appearance. 
Thei'e are also seen a few mucous corpuscles and some vegetable cells 
from the animal's food. The epithelial scales are very granular, show- 
ing the earlier processes of retrograde degeneration. 

At the fauces, there is intense inflammation with an effusion of 
lymph, the parts being dotted over with a yellowish- white pigment. 
(From observations in Galicia, by Prof Simonds, in 1857; 1st 
Rep., p. 5.) 

The buccal membrane around the teeth is ulcerated looking, and 
stretching between each tooth is a kind of white secretion, which is 
easily removed and very fetid. (Per W. Pallin, V. S., Sequel, &c., p. 
63.) 

II. The Stomachs. The first and second stomachs are generally 
loaded and distended with food, a circumstance which indicates their 
suspended functional activity. No change of structure is observed 
in either organ, and their lining membranes are not reddened or con- 
gested. f Jr*er contra, their membranes are friable, infiltrated andblood 
spotted here and there. (Egan.) 

The third stomach, or omasum, exhibits, after careful search of its 
folds and in about one-half of the dissections, irregular^ circular 
patches from the size of a pin's head to that of a twenty-five cent 
piece, which have bright red or scarlet margins, and in the larger 
j)atches inclose a central portion of a dirty yellow color and gangren- 
ous ajDpearance. (PI. Ill, fig. 1.) This portion is slightly depressed, 
friable, quite bloodless, and the papillae on its surface shrunken, 
especially towards the middle, but there is not any breach of substance. 

* The tongue is foul with a greenish yellow deposit about its base, and this exudation some- 
times extends down the oesophagus (gullet) ; so marked in one case that Gamgee was induced to 
make a water sketch of this somewhat unusual con&itiou. (Gamgee's Cattle Plague, p. 58.) 

t In protracted cases, the epithelium of the rumen has been seen to detach itself readily, or to 
be already removed on first examination, and ulce?-ation has been witnessed. Both in the reti- 
culum (2d stomach) and omasum is found, in some cases, a somewhat reddened mucous membrane 
beneath the epithelium, which sheds off too freely. (Gamgee's Cattle Plague, p. 59.) 

X Such deeply reddened, more or less, circumscribed patches, have been observed by Prof J. 
Gamgee in pleuro-pneumouia and cases of chronic impaction of the third stomach. (Gamgee's 
Cattle Plague, p. 59.) 



* MOEBID ANATOMY. 33 

The bright color of the outer ring, as shown hj the microscope, is 
due not to ecchymosis but to the confluence of the congested papillary 
vessels (PI. Ill, fig. 2), and thus explains the sharply defined margi- 
nate character of the patches. Their mode of extension is as follows : 
A single papilla is first attacked and its vessels become extremely con- 
gested (PI. Ill, figs. 2a and 2b), as in fig. 2a (of the natural size, 
being more distinctly seen under high magnification in fig. 2b). The 
dark spots at the apex of the papilla indicate commencing gangrene, 
while the effused blood, stretching from it in every direction in curv- 
ing filaments, shows the mode of attack upon the neighboring papillae. 
As the congestion extends, the central papillse show a circle of dull 
gangrenous appearance, the outer papillae are engorged to the highest 
degree of vascularity, forming the scarlet-colored ring (PI. Ill, fig. 
1,) and thus disorganization spreads from the center to the circum- 
ference. 

The third stomach is usually full to swelling ; it is sometimes firm 
and sometimes soft to the touch, and in accordance therewith the 
contents are sometimes solid and dry (often so much so as to be capable 
of being rubbed to powder), in cake-shaped layers, squeezed together 
between the compartments, arid sometimes merely damp, pappy fod- 
der. In the former case, the mucous membranes lining the walls of 
the stomach appear in places ragged and loose and sticking to the 
fodder ; in the latter case, the mucous membrane is very much softened 
and the surface skin easily removable. (Egan.) 

In some instances the purple circles so much spoken of can be ob- 
served, but it is a state which I believe exists also in other diseases. 
The epithelium peels off attached to the ingesta, which is found gene- 
rally hardened between the folds, themselves injected, while the 
papillae stand erect and prominent. (Pallin.) 

The third stomach is affected with inflammation in patches. This 
inflammatory action often going on to a degree of intensity as ulti- 
mately to end in ulceration. (Simonds.) In most of the cases observed 
by J. Simon, there was considerably more affection of the third 
stomach than appears to be general, according to the German reports. 
The claret-colored patches and eventually sloughs were more frequent 
in England.* (1st Rep., p. 43.) 

The abomason, or fourth stomach, is reddened in the earlier stages 
of the disease only a little more than in health, but the color deep- 

* The abrasion of the epithelial membrane is not a diagnostic sign of this disease ; nor is the 
peeling off and adhering to the plastic surface of the food to be confounded, as has been sup- 
posed by some, with the erosion of the mucous membrane. 

The epithelium undergoes constant change in health, and can be readily stripped from the third 
stomach of a perfectly healthy animal freshly slaughtered. (Smart.) 

5 



34 EINDERPEST. * 

ens as the malady progresses, and becomes dusky red with inter- 
spersed claret-colored patches. (PI. IV, fig. 1.) Its lining membrane* 
exhibits the following deviations from a healthy state : 1st. Its attach- 
ment to the muscular coat is generally loosened, and at many points 
destroyed. 2d. It is soft, easily breaks down under pressure, and 
where the change is furthest advanced, peels off as if cohering me- 
chanically to its sub-mucous connections. 3d. Its ej)ithelium is imper- 
fect, and at many points quite absent, thus forming cracks on its 
surface. 4th. The high color of the tissue, as microscopically deter- 
mined, is due, not as has been stated, to sub-mucous or intra-mucous 
extravasation, but to vascular congestion in its most extreme form ; 
the vessels being distended to their limits, but without rupture or 
dispersion of their contents unless artificially produced. 5th. In some 
instances, generally in cases examined a few hours after death, some 
small ulcer-like depressed abrasions have been found. These are not 
true ulcers, and do not penetrate beyond the epithelium. In other 
instances black spots, without breach of surface and evidently due to 
pigmentation, were met with. (Smart.) 

In simple cases, the fourth stomach is the principal seat of disease ; 
the natural yellow or brown color of it is changed to a dark or mul- 
berry shade ; the lining membrane is thickened and corrugated^ and in 
cases which have been long suffering, there are often patches resem- 
bling ulceration. A careful examination of this stomach proves the 
morbid condition not to be the result of inflammation, but depending 
entirely on an intense capillary congestion of the mucous coat, which 
is found raised and separated from the muscular one beneath ; . . . the 
peritoneal covering of the stomach is generally healthy, proving the 
non-existence of inflammation. (Pallin.) 

The rennet stomach (laabmagen) and the thin guts (diinndarm) 
always exhibit the most striking change ; on the outer surface they 
are more or less discolored, covered with livid spots and bare places, 
and when cut up the mucous membrane appears dark red, and covered 
with a tough adhesive slimy fluid, discolored, frequently of a greenish 
black. (Egan.) 

In the fourth stomach there is intense inflammation of the villous 
membranes in patches, and every now and then you see spots of ulcer- 
ation. (Simonds.) 

III. The Intestines. These show a like congestive vascularity, 

* This is swollen, especially near the pylorus, and there is a singular mottled aspect, when 
closely observed, from the grayish epithelial deposit in the glandular openings. Erosions and 
ulceration are not uncommon. Dr. Murchison says : " The membrane is studded wiih numerous 
minute superficial ulcers like those erosions which are so common in the ordinary cartarrhal 
inflammation of the human stomach." (Gamgee's Cattle Plague, p. 59.) 



MOKBID ANATOMY. 35 

resembling the phenomena of muco-enteritis. Dr. Murchison's ob- 
servations, however, make the inflammation of the small intestines 
usually most intense about the middle. The minuter vessels of the 
small intestines are completely injected, and can be seen by the naked 
eye in the ai-borescent forms of their inti'icate reticulations. (PL V, 
fig. 1.) When the capillary congestion is complete and is passing 
into the stage of destructive disorganization, there is shown a very 
characteristic mahogany appearance, (fig. 2.) In the large intestines 
the principal blood vessels of the mucous folds (rugae) are mainly and 
in a higher degree affected, which gives to the gut a peculiarly 
striped aspect. (PI. VII, fig. 3.) 

In the duodenum we also find similar (inflammatory and ulcerous) 
indications of disease as well as in the other small intestines, particu- 
larly in patches ; we observe now and then a tendency to ulceration or 
that there is ulceration of Peyer's glands ; but it does not appear to be 
an essential of the disease in its early stages. In the larger intestines 
ai'e seen similar lesions to those in the smaller, and more frequently 
ulceration in the apex of the csecum. The rectum may or may not be 
inflamed. Simonds. 

The vascular* engorgement increases towards the terminal portion 
of the canal and the mucous folds of the rectum exhibit the tumid 
and deeply purple appearance of internal haemorrhoids. (PI. IX, fig. 1.) 

The entire canal of the intestines is more or less filled with fetid 
gases. (Egan.) 

The ileum is affected similarly to the pyloric end of the stomach, 
thickened, &c. That intensity of these appearances recurs in the 
caecum. Here the red patches are visible, varying in intensity along 
the course of the large intestines until they reach the rectum, which 
is evidently another favorite abode of the disease, which is thickened, 
discolored and ulcerated, in advanced stages. (Pallin.) 

The whole mucous lining of the bowels is unduly soft and its 
epithelium imperfect. There are no true ulcerations as in the ulcera- 
tive typhoid of man. Not unfrequently a viscid fetid mucus covers 
the membranous surface. The bowel is usually empty or its contents 
are fluid and slimy. The discharges contain bile, and are sometimes 
tinged with blood. Occasionally they resemble the rice-water stools 
of cholera. The feculent matter contained in the intestines (Mrs. 
Nichols' cow) was fluid, stinking, and of a dirty white color, 
(Simonds.) The ileo-caecal valve is, as regards function, healthy, 

* There are cases in which the intestinal mucous membrane is singularly free from disease. 
There are others in which the general blood extravasation has undergone a similar change, and 
acquired the color and character of a melanotic deposit. In these cases there is simply an open 
perforated aspect of Peyer's patches, and in others these glands seem to have disappeared alto- 
gether. (Gamgee, p. 60.) 



36 EINDEEPEST. 

but its lining membrane, as also that of the csecal appendage, is 
involved in the general hypervascularity. 

There is no sloughing or invagination of the bowels, nor any 
desquamation of its mucous surface in the form of casts. The intesti- 
nal glands do not share to any marked extent in the altered condition 
of the membrane, except that they are obscured by its discoloration. 
They are never ulcerated, but exhibit the chronic tuberculous condi- 
tion frequently met with in healthy animals. The mesenteric glands 
show no lesion of structure, but are bloodless and shrunken, and their 
lacteal vessels are generally empty, 

IV. Kidneys, Bladder, Uterus, &c. The pyramids of the kid- 
neys are usually congested ; the cortex is pale, but the structure 
entire. The lining membranes of the bladder and urethra, never 
seriously involved, present only the appearances when the organs 
are congested. The uterus exhibits no peculiar feature ; the state 
of the vagina, and especially of the vulva, being highly characteristic^ 
the aphthous eruj)tion, as observed in the mouth, being apparent 
at the junction of the mucous membrane of the vulva with the 
integument,* (PI, II, fig. 1.) 

The labia superiorly are dry and corru.gated, inferiorly coated with 
discharges thick and putrid, which, when removed, shows the papillary 
eruption of an aphthous nature, (Pallin.) 

V. Heart, Liver, Spleen, The condition of the heai*t is not 
peculiar, but such as is ordinarily induced by many exhausting 
diseases. Its muscular substance is relaxed and flabby ; there is no 
valvular lesion or structural change. Ecchymosed patches are some- 
times seen on the exterior of the ventricles. On the inner part of the 
heart, and on the left side in particular, petechise were present, 
(Simonds,) The large vessels and their lining membranes are 
healthy. The liver is of natural size, pale in coloi', but sound in 
structure, [The liver is generally friable and of a clay yellow, Egan,] 
The gall bladder is usually filed with bile, which is thin , and of a 
light green color, and rarely patchy discolorations are found on its 
lining membrane, [It is much distended with thin, yellowish gall, 
Egan.] In one or tioo iiistances in Galicia we found ulceration of the 
mucous membrane of the gall bladder, and effusion of lymph into the 
gall ducts. (Simonds.) 

The spleen is too pulpy, and breaks down under slight pressure, 

* The mucous membrane of the orgaus of generation is always red, tumefied, and the epithe- 
lium undergoing changes as seen on the mucous surface of the organs of respiration and digestion. 
(Gamgee, &c., p. 66.) 



MORBID ANATOMY. 37 

The pulp is composed of broken down tissue and blood cells of a very 
dark color. It exhibits the same condition asrin exhausting fever. 
The spleen is generally unchanged. (Egan.) 

VI. Windpipe, Larykx, Lungs and Thoeacic Cavity. The 
entire mucous membrane lining the respiratory passages is reddened 
and highly vascular, as in the earlier stages of acute bronchial 
catarrh. (PI. IX, fig. 2.) It is sometimes nearly dry, but more fre- 
quently, especially in the smaller tubes, there is an abundance of 
frothy mucus (purulent — Egan) often of a slightly red color or tinged 
with blood. [It often appears to be free from inflammatory action, 
but is covered over with layers of lymph, frequently as thin as a sheet 
of paper. Simonds.] The membrane is entirely free of aphthous 
eruption, and there are but rarely indications of an efi'usive or deposi- 
tive inflammatory condition. Exceptional cases have been observed 
in Vienna, and by Prof. Gambee, where a considerable deposit was 
observed in the trachea.* Only one case is to be found in all the 
museums of Europe where there has been, as in the exudation of 
croup, a solid fibrinous deposit in the trachea. (1st Rep., p. 110.) 
The air cells of the lungs in uncomplicated cases are healthy; any 
emphysematous condition being chronic and not superinduced by the 
disease. The lungs appear shriveled, pale or discolored, and some- 
times much swollen. (Egan.) The serous membrane of the chest, 
as a rule, is likewise free from disease. (Simonds.) 

VII. Brain and Spinal Coed. The cerebral membranes are much 
congested, not without vascular rupture or extravasation. There is 
no. efiiisioii on the brain, no congestion of the membranes of the 
spinal cord, the brain and cordbeing both perfectly healthy. 

The brain gives no indication of disease ; but in detaching the brain 
from the spine, we found nearly in every instance in Galicia a 
larger quantity of fluid than ordinary. (Simonds.) 

DuPEiES, in post-moi-tems made in 1795 and 1814, with special 
reference to the lesions of the nervous system, invariably noted the 
following appearances : The spinal marrow softer and more injected 
than in health, especially in the lumbar region, so that when touched 
it appeai-ed to be mere pulp. Serum limpid and transparent was 
found in the duplicatures of its investing membrane in great quantity, 
more abundant in the lumbar region. The cellular tissue of the 

* Gamgee has drawn out of the bronchial tubes imperfect and friable casts made by exudation 
which, when placed in alcohol, retained a considerable degree of solidity and firmness. In such 
cases the mucous membrane is all of a deep red color, with a dirty looking deposit on its surface, 
and a complete destruction of the normal ciliated epithelium. (Gamgee , p. 57.) 



38 RINDERPEST. 

lumbar and sacral nerves, where they join the sj^inal cord, is ordi- 
narily gorged with Woody serum, and in one case, in 1795, the 
nervous filaments were sprinkled with very small black ecchymoses. . 
The brain is not so soft as the cord ; most frequently it appears to be 
healthy; sometimes, however, more injected, and the meninges 
redder ; the ventricles very often filled with an abundant lemon- 
colored serum. In one case, Dupries saw the arachnoid dotted with 
little black ecchymoses also found on the plexus choroides. Gamgee 
found usually redness of the meninges of the brain, and deeper red- 
ness of the cord, especially in cases where the breathing was very 
labored during life ; and on puncturing the dura mater four to six 
ounces of serum escaped. 

VIII. Urine, Blood and Milk. The urine in all cases contained 
albumen^ in varying proportions, and in the majority of cases, hlood 
cells also. 

The blood, as in most cases in the vessels of a dead animal, 
remains fluid for a considerable period after death. (It sticks pecu- 
liarly to the hand. Higgins, 1st Rep., p. 119.) 

On analysis- the blood was deficient in fluids and in its proper salts ; 
with fibrine in excess. The blood of a healthy calf contained 4.53 parts 
of fibrine and 89.69 of corpuscles in 1000 parts. After disease, which 
was slight and induced by inoculation, the fibrine rose to 4.85 and the 
blood corpuscles to 117.7 in 1000 parts. In a bad case the fibrine 
amounted to 9.9 in 1000 parts. In three cases of analysis of urine, 
the coloring matter of bile was present ; in one the bile acids were 
present and in one case examined for leucine and tyrosine, these con- 
stituents were not found. (A. Gamgee.) 

The blood coagulates slowly but firmly out of the body. The 
clot resembles pitch, and in the fluid state the blood has a 
somewhat tarry or porter like appearance (PI. X, fig. 2) com- 
pared with (fig. 1), showing the color of healthy blood. The 
temperature of freshly drawn blood in an advanced stage of disease 
in a cow slaughtered, was 91«* Fahr., with specific gravity of 59° ; 
the temperature of healthy blood obtained in slaughtering being the 
same, its specific gravity 70° less. Under the microscope, the red 
corpuscles are small and shrunken, their cell walls also shrink and 
corrugate, and many assume a stellated form. They also cohere 
tenaciously, the white corpuscles are greatly in excess as compared 
with a healthy state, are swelled out, many ruptured and their 
granular contents dispersed over the microscopic field. (PI. X, fig. 3, 
showing Rinderpest blood compared with healthy blood in fig. 4.) 



MOEBID A]5fAT0MT. 39 

The milk when drawn from a cow in an advanced state of the 
disease is altogether creamy, resembling in some cases melted butter. 
It has a peculiar persistent taste, owing probably to a deficiency in 
sugar. It decomposes rapidly, and under the microscope consists of 
fatty cells crowded and overlaying one another (PI. XI, fig. 1 ; as 
comj)ared with the appearance of healthy milk in the m.icroscopic 
field, fig. 2.) 

IX. Tissues, &c. The serous membranes, when the disease has no 
complications, are healthy and with no effusion into their sacs. 

The celkilar condition of the loins in some animals is highly 
emphysematous, a condition occurring frequently in life. But it is a 
dangerous comj^lication ; one of the cows under treatment died from 
suffocation simply from this cause. 

X. Udder, Skin, &c. The structure of this last is unimpaired- 
the diminished secretion of milk is to be referred to systemic causes. 
In one third of the cases examined by Dr. Smart, an eruption 
appeared very generally diffused over the sJcin^ and most abundantly 
in the flanks. The eruption as seen in the udder had a vesicular 
chai-acter, making its appearance on the 5th to Vth day. 

These eruptions y^ox^ papules and not pustules, as observed by Dr. 
Thos. Hillier, M. D., medical oflicer of health (2d Rep., p. 33), 
though he did not trace the eruptions to their conclusion. 

XL Feet. The lining membranef of the cleft of the hoof is very 
highly congested, with desquamation, &c., similar to the other external 
lesions of mouth and vulva. 

XII. Flesh. This possesses a mulberry or dark claret color, with 
the remarkable quality of irridescence or of changing color. The 
color of the fat is of a dark and dusky yellow, becoming more marked 
after exposure to light and air. Both muscles and fat exhibit an 
unusual degree of shrinkage. (PI. XII, fig. 1.) The muscle, however, 
after a period of exposure, loses the first characteristic distinction 
from healthy beef (PI. XII, fig. 3), and the mulberry hue is insensibly 

* The surface of the skin over the neck and withers is often moist or greasy, from an abundant 
sebaceous secretion. There are no vesicles and an entire absence, as a rule, of pustules. In 
some cases are seen somewhat flattened nodules presenting the characters of false cow-pox. 
GtTEESENT, in his " Essai sur les Epizootiques," speaks of this eruption in mild cases, &c., in the 
form of small eminences of conical form, analogous to false vaccine. Prof. Geblach noticed this 
appearance rarely in Great Britain, but more frequently in Holland, where the disease was less 
virulent. (Gamgee, &c., p. 50.) 

+ The great capacity of this membrane for the diseased condition, naturally leads to the infer- 
ence that it is highly capable of absorbing the virus from urine, dung and other exuviae of 
Rinderpest subjects, with which it may be brought in contact. 



40 EINDEKPEST. 

changed for a reddened tint, still with an element of brown, which 
imparts a peculiar duskiness to it. (PI. XII, fig. 2.) If the animal is 
slaughtered early in the development of disease, there cannot be' 
detected any alteration in the carcass. (Higgins, 1st Rep., p. 119.) 
Prof Briicke, of Vienna, stated that during a recent epidemic of 
steppe murrain, in Bohemia, the authorities, according to their prac- 
tice, had the diseased beasts slaughtered and buried ; but that the 
populace dug the carcasses up and ate them Avithout any injury.* 
Similar accounts of plenty of cases are^ given in Levy's Traite 
Hygiene. (J. Simon.) 

It is of considerable importance that we should state, that 
of the 98 cases tabularly reported by Dr. Smart, with the 
distinctive lesions which they revealed on dissection prior to 
the 11th of December last, thirteen were examined as dis- 
tinctive cases of murrain or mouth and foot rot, and pleuro- 
pneumonia, ten of the former and three of the latter. It was 
deemed highly desirable to furnish a comparison of the lesions 
which these diseases cause, inasmuch as many of the cases 
of Einderpest were found to be complicated with these and 
other fatal maladies ; twelve with chronic pleuro-pneumonia, 
five with double chronic pleuro-pneumonia, five with pleurisy, 
acute and chronic, one with pulmonary apoplexy, &c. 

The reddened aspect of the lining membrane of the 
fourth stomach in murrain is limited to the upper third 
of the membrane, never exhibits the purple or mulberry 
tinge, but is found associated with dark colored spots, which 
are sub-mucous haemorrhages or apoplexies ; the blood thus 
effused ultimately induces erosion of the superjacent mem- 
brane, while the epithelium is entire and the mucous 
membrane otherwise sound. The dark irregular patches 
seen in the membrane (PL IX, fig 3), representing the 
haemorrhages or apoplexies of the mucous membrane in 
murrain (or mouth and foot rot), are never present in Einder- 
pest, but have been found in all of Dr. Smart's dissections 
of murrain cattle. Though the mouth shows discolorations, 

* It is to be hope^ that the food thus eaten was thoroughly cooked, so as to destroy the entozoa, 
which have almost invariably been found in animals dying of the cattle plague, and in much 
larger numbers than in the cases of healthy animals. For description, &c., of the animalcule, 
see Appendix to Cattle Plague, p. 819. 



GENERAL PATHOLOGY. 41 

or sometimes a single ulcer ou the tongue, there is no 
reddened or abnormal affection of the vagina ; while in most 
cases the intestines, lungs and air-tubes, and in all cases the 
heart, liver, spleen and kidneys, were healthy and sound. 
In pleuro-pneumonia, the principal abnormal signs are found 
in the lining membranes of the air tubes, which are congested 
and thickened ; in the lungs, either hepatized,* consolidated 
at the base, adherent to the investing membranes or with 
effusion ; in the heart, dilated and relaxed, with adherent 
pericardium ; and in the liver, spleen and kidney being more 
or less congested. 



(II B.) GENERAL PATHOLOGY. 

As before intimated, we dissent from the opinion so gene- 
rally concurred in by those whose opportunities of examina- 
tion and whose veterinary skill entitle their judgments to the 
highest respect, that the Rinderpest is identical with the epizo- 
otics which have visited Europe and Great Britain for ages 
past. But we will not express this conviction without first con- 
ceding some fair apology lor those who, against reasonable 
grounds of doubt, have been led apparently to coincide with the 
general current of opinion and authority. We may then, with- 
out also yielding our judgment, venture to prove from 
contemporaneous evidence, which has happily been placed 
before us, that the murrains of the last century are wholly 
distinct in their pathognomical indications from the distem- 
per we are considering. 

It is natural that there should exist in the popular mind a 
tendency to confound this pest with all others which in past 
ages have destroyed, and even up to the present time are 
desolating flocks and herds of domesticated animals, and 
generally known as murrains. But scientific minds refuse to 
indulge in this general confusion. We cheerfully record the 

* In Rinderpest the lung is not necessarily diseased. A dull, solid-like sound is emitted on 
striking the ribs over a lung solidified from pleuro-pneumonia. In Rinderpest, when the lungs 
are emphysematous, the sound from percussion is still more resonant and hollow-like than even 
from healthy lungs. (T. Baldwin. Sequel, &c., p. 43.) 

6 



42 - EINDERPEST. 

fact tliat veterinary diagnosis is now happily so far advanced 
that it rarely happens that the Pest is now, as it has been, 
identified with or mistaken for the following epizootics which 
have obtained a foothold on the continent and in England, 
to wit : Eczema-epizootica (month and foot rot), or pleuro- 
pneumonia-typhoica, or (by some writers styled) exudativa ; 
(contagious pleuro-pueumonia).* 

Moreover, the terror which epizootics as well as ei^idemics 
excite in a community where their extraordinary havoc is 
witnessed from hour to hour, indisposes even the most heroic 
to those patient modes of investigation, which can alone 
clearly define the nature and scope of the pestilence, and 
secure its ultimate mastery by remedial agencies. 

Hence, we have the vaguest notions of most of those epi- 
zootics which have scourged the continent and Great Britain 
for many centuries. The murrains in the latter, of 1348-9, 
1480 and 1665, have left behind them but little note of 
anything but their fatality and rude attempts at sanitary 
regulation. Those, however, which were developed in the 
eighteenth century, had the advantage of no inconsiderable 
skill in their investigation. And we cannot but express our 
reluctance to state, that the Eoyal Commission have given 
the sanction of their high authority to the indorsement of the 
opinion, that the Einderpest is identical with the murrains of 
1714 and 1745. As there exists sufficiently accurate descrip- 
tions of the morbid anatomy of these distempers, and as the 
question of identity is of imi)ortance, not only as a matter of 
history but of diagnosis and therapeutics, we shall offer no 
apology for the space devoted to the review of post-mortem 
and other examinations, made during their prevalence, which, 
as we think, clearly demonstrate a total want of identity. 
Perhaps, however, we ought to acknowledge two common 
facts in the epizootics of 1714 and 1865. Each first made its 
appearance at Islington, and about the middle of July. 

* We may regret that the latter disease, imported a few years since from Holland into Massa- 
chusetts, was regarded, in terms at least, as mere pleuro-pneumonia, which is enzootic or spo- 
radic. The pneumonia which effected no inconsiderable loss, and threatened an extended alarm 
throughout this country, was finally put at bay, and is now understood and recognized as typhoid 
in its distinctive character. 



GENERAL PATHOLOGY. 43 

Thos. Bates, Esq., F. R. S. and Surgeon to Ms Majesty's 
Household, was appointed by the Lord Justices to investigate 
this plague of 1714, and he has presented, in his paper* read 
in 1718, before the Eoyal Society of London, a very clear 
pathological view of this distemper. He alludes, in his 
report, to the pestilence of 1C65, resulting, as was be- 
lieved, from " a want of due care in burying the cattle " 
who perished the year before, and insists upon burialt to the 
depth of nine or ten feet. He states the mortality in three 
counties, in 1714-15, at nearly 6,000, and the loss (prime 
cost) at <£24,500. He limits the period of the severity of 
this plague to three months, though "it was not entirely 
suppressed until Christmas," and alludes to its| raging in 
Holland for three j^ears, at a loss of over 300,000 head of 
neat stock. 

The following symptoms were furnished to Dr. Bates by 
the cow-keepers, who had lost from over one-half to seven- 
eights of their stock : 

" The cows first refused their food. The next day they had husMsh 
coughs, and voided excrement like clay ; their heads SAvelled and 
sometimes their bodies. In a day or two more there was a great 
discharge of mucous matter by the nose, and their breath smelled 
offensively. Lastly, they had severe j)urging, sometimes bloody, 
which terminated in death ; .... some died in three days and others 
in five or six days, but the bulls lived eight or ten days ; .... during 
their whole illness they refused all manner of food, and were very 
hot:' 

Bates ordered the slaughter of all cattle and disinfection 
of the premises. But the distemper, owing, as he thought, 
to the " free intercourse which both masters and servants had 
had with each others' cows," had " spread the contagion." 

* See Philosopli. Trans., No. 538, p. 872; Vol. VI. of Abridgment, p. 375. 

t Burying with lime, two bush, to a cow ten feet deep, developed a strong scent of meat, which 
attracted dogs, and caused them to tear up the ground with their feet — otherwise where the ani- 
mals were buried at less depth and without lime. Philosoph. Trans, vol. XI of Abridgment, 
p. 255. 

X This might serve if no other proofs were presented as indicating the epizootic on the conti- 
nent and Great Britain as one and the same during this epoch, and the observationB of Lancisi 
as well as the treatise of Rammazini, we think confirm the presumption. 



44 EINDEEPEST. 

He subsequently dissected sixteen cows, in "different 
degrees of infection," first five, in whom the " symptoms 
were just become visible," then six that had " been ill about 
two days," and five that " were very nearly dying." 

In the first set " the gall bladders were larger than usual, and filled 
with bile of a natural taste and smell, but of a greener color. The 
pancreas was shriveled ; some of the glands were obstructed and 
tumefied; many of the glands in the mesenteries were twice or 
thrice their natural size. Their lungs were a little inflamed ; all other 
parts of their viscera appeared as in a healthful state." In the 
second set the following difierences and aggravations were found. 
" The livers were blacker than usual, and in two of them there were 
several cysts filled with a petrified substance like chalk, about the 
size of a pea ; gall of a greener color than the first. Some of the 
glands were very large and hard ; the mesenteries Jive times their 
natural size, and all of a blackish color. Lungs inflamed, with 
several cysts forming. Their intestines were full of red and bluish 
spots. Their flesh was very hot, though not altered in coloi*." In 
the third set he noticed the following changes, to wit : " Liver now 
much shriveled and contracted, and in three of them there were 
several cysts as large as nuts or nutmegs, filled with a petrified sub- 
stance like chalk ; gall bladders three times their usual size, &c. ; 
mesenteric glands, eight or ten times their natural size, were very 
black, and in most of those glands in the pelvis of two cows there 
was a yellow petrifaction of the consistence of a sandstone. Intestines 
of the color of a snake, their inner coat excoriated by purging. 
Lungs more inflamed, with cysts containing yellow purulent matter, 
many as large as a nutmeg." 

The dissections of these three classes of subjects were quite uni- 
form ; but Bates notices three cases as " very extraoi-dinary " — one 
in which " the bile was petrified in its vessels and resembled a tree of 
coral, but of a dark yellow color and brittle substance." In another, 
"were several inflammations on the liver, some as large as a half- 
crown, cracked round the edges, and appeared separating from the 
second part, like a pestilential carbuncleP In the third, "the liquor 
contained in the pericardium appeared like the subsi(^ings of aqua 
calcis, and had excoriated and given as yellow a color to the whole 
surface of the heart and pericardium, as aqua calcis could possibly 
have done." 

Aside from the admitted fact that this pestilence was both 
infectious and contagious, and that the virus was commu- 



GENEKAL PATHOLOGY. 45 

nicated in very many cases by fomites (the clothing of 
attendants, &c.); physiologists, we believe, will find little 
resemblance between the symptoms and dissections of this 
distemper of 1714 and those of the Rinderpest. Neither do 
we think that the Pest can be identified with the epizootic,* 
which ravaged parts of the continent from 1744 to 1772 ; and 
England from 1745 to 1757 (again breaking out in 1765) ; 
although Professor Simonds, a very high authority, seem- 
ingly abandoning the position taken in his report made in 
1857, to the I^Tational Agricultural Societies of Great Britain, 
on the plague which was then very fatal in Eastern Europe ; 
has in his evidence before the Eoyal Commission of 1865 (1st 
Eeport, p. 2, § 16) stated that the plague of 1745 was the 
same as that at present existing in England. 

Professor Simonds in his Eeport,f speaking of the murrain 
of 1714, says : 

"It appears, however, that the malady possessed many of the 
features of Eczema epizootica, now common in this comitry, and it 
may possibly have been identical with this disease. The infection 
seems to have been communicated by the saliva, as it is said that 
" when this is dropped on the grass, and sound animals are immedi- 
ately placed in the same pasture, they contract the disease, and in 
some bullocks the tongue was inflamed and covered with many red 
blisters." 

And, again alluding to the singular exemption which 
Great Britain enjoyed after the subsidence of the latter 
epizootic, until August, 1859, mentions the great anxiety 
which was created by — 

" The sudden and almost simultaneous appearance of a " new affec- 
tion" (although probably of the same nature as that of 1713-14), 
amongst the cattle in different parts of the country, popularly known 
as the mouth and foot disease." 

The Professor also refers to Dr. Layard's Essayl on the 

* There were destro5'cd in Western Europe from 1711-14, one and a half millions of cattle, and 
from 1745-8, three millions in Western and Central Europe. These statements are believed not 
to have been exaggerated by the foreign authors who furnish these statistics, giving as the loss 
of Denmark, from 1745-9, 230,000 head, and of Holland, from 1769-72, 395,000 head. 

t See Journal of Royal Agricultural Society, Vol. xviii, pp. 197 and 200. 

X See an essay on the nature, causes and cure of the contagious distemper among the horned 
cattle in these kingdoms, by Daniel Petek Latard, M. D., Mem. Roy. Coll, of Physicians, and 
of the Royal Society,,1757. 



46 EINDBRPEST, 

epizootic of 1745, as to the opinions prevalent at that time 
(and quoted by Laj-ard from Dr. Mortimer) on the origin 
of the disease, whether brought by imported calves from Hol- 
land, or by distempered hides from Zealand ; but he seems 
latterly to have overlooked the pathology of the disease as 
described by Dr. Layard. 

This learned ])hysician inclines to the opinion that the 
distemper of which he so elaborately wrote was similar 
to that visited upon the obdurate Pharaoh, 1,C00 years 
B. 0., which resulted in the destruction of all the cattle 
in the fields ; horses, asses, camels, oxen and sheep, by 
a very grievous murrain, " Z>oi7s breaking forth with Mains 
upon man and beast." Adverting to the great plague which, 
after destroying, in the days of Eomulus, the fruits of the 
earth and cattle, swept off many of the JRomans and Laii- 
rentes ; quoting Livy, who identifies the disease as equally 
affecting men and brutes ; a recurrence of which took place 
A. U. 0. 355 ; Layard passes to the authority of Columella, 
Gesner and Aldrovandus, who described the disease as a 
subcutaneous disease ; makes it a plague of the same kind 
which destroyed " everj?^ head of cattle in Charlemagne's 

army, . also throughout all his dominions ;" and rallying 

upon the account given by Rammazini of the distemper in 
Germany and Italy in 1514 and 1599, winds u^) with this 
general expression of his historical survey : 

" The same countries which breed the plague and small-pox seem 
to have propagated this contagion. The autumnal heats in Asia or 
Africa, the putrid effluvia from the Nile, or from corrupted, stagnating 
waters, are sufficient to contaminate the blood and jnices of the 
cattle." (Page 13.) 

This presents, it is true, a theory of the identity of cattle 
murrains through all historic periods. As a generalization 
broader in its grasp than the one we are combating, we shall 
leave it to rest upon the evidence it briugs from the records 
upon which it relies ; or the imaginative skill with which the 
eloquent Doctor has grounded this universal pestilence on 
its effliuvial origin. The pathology of that which he saw, 
is more to our present purpose. After describing the usual 



GENEEAL PATHOLOGY. 47 

symptoms of sudden debility which manifest themselves in 
most cattle affected with blood-poison or ferment of any kind, 
he notices : 

" A constant diarrhoea of fetid green faeces, a stinking breath, nau- 
seous steams from the skin, blood very florid, hot and frothy urine, or 
stale, high colored ; roofs of the mouths and barbs ulcerated, tumors 
or hoils felt under the panniculv.s carnosus or fleshy membrane of the 
skin (note reference to Rammazini and Lancisi), eruptions all along 
their limbs and about their bags (note reference to Aldrovandus, 
I, 110, De malide Subtercutanea), visible irritation during some time 
in ano, much groaning, symptoms aggravated in the evening, animals 
mostly lying down." " The symptoms continue increasing till the 
seventh day from the invasion, on which generally, though sometimes 
protracted till the ninth, the crisis takes place." 

Now, we will admit that some of these symptoms might 
present a difficulty in distinguishing between themselves and 
those occurring in Einderpest; but the Doctor, in his chapter 
on piognosis, clears up every doubt or mystery. 

" If, therefore, the following symptoms be observed on the seventh 
day from the seizure, namely, either eruptions all over the skin or 
boils as big as pigeon's eggs on different parts of the body, but espe- 
cially from the head to the tail, all along each side of the spine or 
back-bone and tail, so ripe as to discharge putrid and stinking matter ; 
large abscesses formed in the horns or in some parts of the body, &c.; 
&c., the nose be sore and scabbed, &c., &c., the beast is out of danger. 
But, on the contrary, if on the seventh day from the invasion the 
eruptions, boils or abscesses are decreased in bulk, or totally disap- 
peared without having broke or discharged outwardly, &c., &c., the 
running from the nose and eyes lessened ; the eyes dim and sunk into 
the head, a perfect stupidity, the beast inevitably will soon die." .... 
" Within some hours of its death, there frequently arises on the back, 
upon the sinking of the small swellings, a large tumor, or bag filled, 
as it were, with air, pressing upon which the contents will move to 
and fro from the head to the tail. This is not only mentioned by 
Rammazini, but also by authors who deemed the disease to be only 
an inflammatory fever ; it is called an empliysona, &c." 

The term " em^jhysema" was evidently intended by Lay- 
ard (if not as synonymous with that, immediately preceding, 
•' inflammatory fever"), to serve as an expressive designation 
of the " large tumor, . filled with air," which supervened 



48 RIKDEEPEST. 

in a fatal resolution of the malady he observed. Gamgee, 
however, who is a zealous advocate of the theory from which 
we dissent, quoting at length the passage from Layard, 
which precedes his prognosis, and omitting the latter ; in a 
note-comment on the " tumors or loils felt under the panni- 
culus carnosus," «&c., declares these to be " evidently the 
emphysematous swellings " described by him as apt to form 
within the first three days after the external symptoms are 
manifest, and about the stage of the disease when severe 
diarrhoea sets in and thirst supervenes. It is clear, however, 
that the term " boils" was used in the unsophisticated sense 
of that term.* 

But what says Dr. Layard of the morbid appearances 
which were presented on dissection. We will note most of 
those characteristic of the malady of 1745. » 

"The membrane of the nose (note Rammazini, p, 458), the glands 
(note Lancisi, III, 11), the whole extent of the frontal simcs, the pith 
of the horns highly inflamed, ulcerated and full of small abscesses ; 
the same appearance in the mouth and about the glands of the throat. 
The lungs inflamed with livid sphacelated spots and here and there 
loaded with hydatids. The heart large, flabby and dark colored, 
containing in its ventricles clots of black blood, of a very loose texture 
without serum, the fat about it of a bright yellow. The liver large, 
its blood and biliary vessels fully extended with dark fluid blood and 
very deep colored bile; the substance of the liver so rotten as to 
separate on the least touch ; the gall bladder stretched to a great 
size and full of greenish bile; the oesophagus ulcerated in some. 
Several marks of inflammation and gangrene appeared on all the 
stomachs — all the intestines empty, and beset with reel and blacJc 
spots. The kidneys and bladder large, without urine ; the kidneys of 
a loose texture, easily torn. The flesh in some was livid, in others of 
a lively red, but soon turned green. The fat that remained was of a 
bright yellow all over the body. In such cows as were with calf the 
uterus was gangrened in several places, and the waters which sur- 
rounded the foetus or calf stunk intolerably. In short every carcass 
gave sufficient evidence of a general putrefaction," &c. 

It should be noted that the italics are those applied by the 
learned Doctor mostly to his Latin terms. We have refrained 

* Cattle Plague, pp. 48, 52. 



GENERAL PATHOLOGY. 49 

from underscoring the symptoms and morbid anatomy of this 
species of anthracoid plague which, unless we are greatly in 
error, places it " toto coelo" in the constellation of epizootics 
from the Einderpest.* 

If, however, it should seem that Layard's account is not as 
explicit in establishing the diversity between the distemper 
of 1745 and the Pest, as that of Bates, with reference to the 
murrain of 1714 : it will not be a difficult task* to supplement 
the evidence by a concise review of three i)apers on this sub- 
ject, read before the Eoyal Society,! by Cromwell Mortimer, 
M. D. ; premising, however, that his first might, in some 
respects, have misled Layard, as it seems to have led astray 
some of his readers in later times. The description which is 
given in his earliest account of animals, observed to be ill — 

That on " the very first day they have a huskiness, breathe short 

and wheeze, hut have no great cough Some lay down 

their heads and run much at the nose The second or third 

day most of them fall into a purging ; groan much and seem to be in 
great jjain. The stools seem to be bilious ; have cakes of jelly come 
away with them, and some were streaked with blood. They soon 
died after these stools came on. Those that ai"e kept out in the cold 
air seldom lived beyond the third day ; those that are kejjt in warm 
houses and clothed ; live five, six and seven days. Many of the cows 
have a wild stare with their eyes ; the whites of the eye and the skin 
of the eyelids looked yellowish; their tongues looked white; they 
had no extraordinary heat in their mouths, or at the roots of their 
horns (a place where they usually feel to judge of the heat of cattle), 
or in the axilla or arm-pit. The mucus runniug from their nose is 
very thick and ropy ; their milk is thick and yellow." 

might have deceived those who did not carefully study the 
post mortem given; notice the fact, that the description of 
symptoms while suffering under the malady, and of the appear- 

* We note that Gamgee, in objectiug to the title given to the Pest by Dr. Budd, "The Siberian 
Cattle Plague," says: "It is apt to lead to confusion with the Siberian Boil Plague, an enzootic 
rather than an epizootic disease, a form of anthrax which never spreads beyond the Russian 
dominions, and which is unknown in healthy districts, even in Siberia itself. The Siberian Boil 
Plague attacks cattle, but principally men and horses ; and although there are at times wide-spread 
outbreaks, these occur under the influence of excessive heat during the hottest months of the 
year," &c. (Cattle Plague, p. 23.) 

t See Transactions for 1745, No. 'Til, p. 533 and 549 ; No. 478, p. 4 ; Vol. IX of Abridgment, p. p. 
171, 177, 184. 

7 



60 EINDEEPEST. 

ances found in dissection, was taken at second-hand by Mor- 
timer, from one who had flayed and opened the two cows par- 
ticularly described in this paper (although the unprofessional 
demonstrator stated that "these were the general appearances 
in most he had flayed ; only that in some he found water in 
the cells of the horns "), or stop to meditate upon Mortimer's 
pathological summary ; 

That this distemjDer hegan by an inflmnmation of the lungs, attended 
with a catarrh or flux of humours from the nose ; that in the progress 
of it there came on an inflammation of the guts, and a purging, caused 
by an acrimony and overflowing of the gall, which ended in stools 
tinged with blood — exciting great pain in the bowels — and brought 
on death. 

The more careful reader of his second paper would have 
reasonably inclined to place due emphasis upon Mortimer's 
descriptions of those 'post mortems conducted under his own 
experienced eye. He was present when three cows were 
examined ; tlxe lungs in all were inflamed and blistered, &c. 
But not content with these dissections, he i)rocured the ser- 
vices of an ingenious apothecary to help him in ex- 
amining everything very carefully. 

But let us give the Doctor's luminous account of what was 
displayed, and as fully at length as it is given in the abridged 
edition of the Transactions of the Society : 

" When the skin was taken off", she appeared very fat ; the muscles 
looked of a darker color than usual. On opening the abdomen, the 
caul appeared very fat ; the j)aunch was greatly distended ; on 
making a puncture much air gushed out ; it had in it a great deal of 
food ; the inside looked well and did not peel ; the 2d and 3d stomach, 
or the omasum, as also the 4th stomach, or abomasum, were almost 
empty, but looked well / the liver was firm, well colored and sound, 
except a few scirrhous knobs about the size of nutmegs ; the gall 
bladder was exceedingly large, and full of very fluid gall ; the guts 
were inflamed in many places ; the colo7i and coecum livid; he had 
the curiosity to have them measured ; from the anus to the insertion 
of the csecum there were 12 yards (the caecum was an ell long), and 
from the csecum to the pyloi'us there were 52 yards. The midriff 
was much swelled and inflamed ; the lungs were sicelled, inflamed, 
adhered in some places to the pleura, and almost wholly covered with 



GENERAL PATHOLOGY. 51 

bladders of Avater ; there was no appearance of any inflammation in 
the pleura, or in either the internal or external intercostal muscles : 
the loindpipe was inflamed greatly throughout its whole course, espe- 
cially its inside, but the gullet, which lay so near it, was not in the 
least inflamed ; the heart was of its natural size ; the pericardium full 
of very fluid blood, probably from the bursting of some branch of 
the coronary artery, caused by the extraordinary accumulation of 
blood in the right ventricle, for the vena cava and right ventricle of 
the heart were turgid and full of black coagulated blood, though this 
cow had been dead but 12 or 14 hours ; the hcngs were likewise turgid 
with blood, but little or none was found in the left ventricle or aorta ; 
the obstruction seemed to have been so great in the lungs that very 
little blood could pass through them from the right to the left ven- 
tricle of the heart, and therefore evidently evinces the existence of 
a confirmed p)&'>^ip>'^^umony. All the membranes lining the nostrils, 
and the spongy bones there, were quite turgid with blood and in the 
highest state of inflammation." He had not seen in any cows he had 
examined any cutaneous sores or exulcerations, nothing like the boils, 
carbuncles, &c., described by authors as the constant concomitants of 
the plague in men ; nor does there seem to be any attempt of nature 
to fling ofl" the distemper by any internal imposthumation or discharge, 
unless by the running at the nose and by the bilious stools or bilious 
urine." 

After noticing a few cases of recovery through occasional 
bleeding, warm maslies of malt and bran, and warm drenches 
of herbs, such as rosemary, wormwood and ground-ivy, with 
honey or treacle ; and regretting that his instructions as to 
treatment, &c., had been so poorly followed by the cow- 
keepers ; he proceeds with his method of treatment, after 
reiterating his previously assured opinion. : 

" The state of the disease seems so evidently to be a peri- 

pneiimony or inflammation of the lungs, windpipe and nostrils, at- 
tended with a redundance of gall " 

He next gives the symptoms of a favorable resolution of 
the distemper, on which so much reliance has been placed ; 
because of the parallel citation made by Layard in a note 
to page 54 of his Treatise, from Eammazini (p. 462); "that 
not one of the cattle recovered but such as had pustules 
broke out upon the skin :" also quoted by Dr. Murchison 



52 MNDEEPEST. 

to establish Ms theory of the identity of the Pest with human 
variola. 

" They are observed to have scabby eruptions come out in their 
groins and axillte tliat itch mnch ; for a cow will stand still, hold out 
her leg, and show great signs of pleasure when a man scratches these 
pustules or scabs for her." 

After seeking in vain to satisfy his mind as to the distem- 
per being propagated through certain kinds of food, green or 
dry ; being in doubt whether its cause was in the air, or at- 
tributable to the changes of the seasons, as to moisture and 
cold, he affirms his clear conviction on one point : 

" This was certain, the viscera concerned in resjnratioti are the parts 
chief!]/ affected." 

In his third account he gives " an instance of the most sur- 
prisingly quick progress of this distemper not come 

to the state of purging," the case of a cow, in which the in- 
flammation in general was greater than in any he had before 
seen ; which had, under the specific treatment then mostly 
relied upon, not only as a curative but prophylactic, been 
bled about three weeks before she was taken, and once as 
soon as taken. The autopsy was as follows : 

"The caul was s^reatly inflamed, the paunch inflamed, and the inner 
coat peeled off, especially that of the (abomasum) faidle ; the guts 
were all inflamed ; the liver was much inflamed in some parts, in others 
was turned livid ; the gall bladder was very large, and the gall very 
liquid ; the hcngs adhered in many places to the pleura, were greatly 
inflamed and turgid toith blood, and were in many places quite black; 
he did not find any of the watery bladders on the surface of these as 
he did on all the others he had seen opened." 

If the examination we have given to Bates' autopsies, 
Layard's Treatise, and Mortimer's papers, may seem to 
have been unduly extended, we must seek our apology in the 
conclusive evidence thus furnished, negativing the dictum of 
the Eoyal Commission, that the Eiuderpest had appeared in 
England prior to its introduction in 1865. 

Making due allowance for any attributable imperfection in 
the accounts given by those who may not have jjossessed the 
same accuracy of descriptive power attained by modern 



GENERAL PATHOLOGY. 53 

pathologists, it is beyond reasonable conjecture, that those 
who saw only epithelial denudation of the fauces, should 
have described ulcerations and abscesses involving even the 
glands of the throat, sometimes the cesophagus, extending to 
the lungs, and inducing in the liver a general rottenness; and 
all this while the same tendency to the development of 
purulent abscesses being exhibited in all the external tissues. 

There seems, in the descriptions of Layard, of the dis- 
temper of 1745,* hardly a symptom or post-mortem appear- 
ance to be viewed as in common with those of the Pest, 
except those which necessarily attend all inflammatory action. 
Even the fat in all parts of the system remained of a Iriglit 
yellow, and the flesh soon turned green. Should the plea be 
interposed that, in the cases described by Dr. Mortimer, the 
pneumonic symptoms overshadowed the current epizootic, 
the reply is fairly to be made, that Mortimer, who was as 
learned an expert as the medical profession of his day could 
produce, does not, if his statements are fairly canvassed or 
credited, admit or support the possibility of the existence of 
any other i)rimary affection than that embraced in and 
bounded by the pneumonic congestion. And if this had a 
marked tendency towards a typhous form, it is not so difficult 
to account for the exacerbated manifestations on the intesti- 
nal canal in some cases he has described, as the result of the 
depletory and purgative treatment pursued. 

If, however, the most subtle analysis of the opinions of 
Mortimer and Layard should reveal discrepancies, these we 
think will be mainly on minor particulars; and cannot dis- 
guise the dilemma in which their successors in veterinary 
pathology are placed, who have by hasty deductions formed 

* The distempers of 1711 and 1745, as malignant and contagious epizootics, may find their type 
in tVie enzootic disease commonly called quarter-ill or murrain, in which, from bad food, impure 
water, or other causes, the hepatic or cystic ducts, either separately or conjointly, and in com- 
bination with the ductus communis choledochus, are obstructed ; producing an enlargement of the 
gall bladder, and, in connection with a congested affection of the liver, forcing an absorption (by 
the method of osmose; of vitiated biliary secretions into the blood ; thus inducing the primary 
symptoms as well as final results of such too copious an infusion of purulent matter. We do not 
allude to concomitant symptoms, such as the destruction of muscular substance in the glutcei, &c., 
and the formation of large cells of vitiated blood corpuscles in their places ; neither do we design 
inpresentingin the enzootic form a countertype to the epizootic, to assign a commoner any original 
cause for their separate developments. All such theoretic views must be referred to future 
Bcientific investigation. 



54 EINDEEPEST. 

on garbled statements of tlie views of these writers, sought 
to sustain the theory of the recurrence of the English mur- 
rains of the last century, and their reappearance in this. 

But we are disposed to move to a further standpoint, and 
to add that if English writers could confuse or mistake obser- 
vations on malignant distempers occurring in their own 
country, within the period of a century and a half; it is a fair 
inference that continental and classic writers may have 
labored under similar misapprehensions in regard to the iden- 
tity of the various pests which have devastated flocks and 
herds in different ages. 

On mere grounds of probability, we might impeach the 
calculation that during the last century alone, twenty-eight 
million head of cattle in Germany ; and in the whole of 
Europe, including Russia, but excluding Siberia and Tartary, 
two hundred millions had fallen victims to the Rinderpest, 
(as these statements are presented in a report to Her Majes- 
ty's government, by Mr. Blackwell, British vice-consul at 
Lubec) ; when we consider that Europe has been afflicted 
with epizootic hydrothorax, dysentery and catarrhal fever, 
in addition to the other distempers we have before enumer- 
ated, and one prevalent in Hungary, called blood plague 
(2 Rep., 29) ; and that her cattle, as well as human population, 
in many localities, have suffered great mortality in bad sea- 
sons for maturing and harvesting crops ; from damaged, 
sprouted or ergotized* grain. 

Now while we are in hand, let us push this investigation to 
remoter regions and times, and enquire what reasons exist for 
imagining that the distempers which scourged the continent 
for a hundred years, commencing at the latter part of the 
seventeenth century, were in any important particulars, phy- 
siologically akin to the Pest. 

Rammazini, so often quoted in aflQrmation of this view, 
has left in his dissertation on the distemper which broke out 
in the Venitian territory, especially in the neighborhood of 
Padua, but a meagre substratum on which to found any such 

* By this phrase " ergotized," we mean to denote the parasitical gro\A'th of all the fungi which 
infest cereals, &c. 



GEKEEAIi PATHOLOGY. 55 

hypothesis. ISTay, those who labor to pervert his views to 
any such end, mnst deny to him the right or ability to pre- 
sent or maintain the conclusions he favored. His tractate, 
far from being as voluminous as that of Lancisi, is clear, 
though terse in its pathological summary, and bears the marks 
of a scholarly and independent thinker. Eefusing to be 
guided by the astrological lore, in which he had been in- 
structed in his youth ; discarding all reference of that cycle 
of malignant disease of which he wrote to any ill-starred con- 
junction of Saturn and Mars ; he avowed himself as the advo- 
cate of a rational system in medicine, and evidently seeks to 
conform his style of reasoning to that of the inductive school. 
True, he was misled by that which he gives as the most defi- 
nite pathognomonic mark ; so often cited of late to prove the 
theory of the variolous character or of continuous outbreaks 
of the Pest, and its recrudescense at the present time : " pus- 
tula quinta vel sexta die per totum corpus erumpentes, ac 
tubercula variolarum speciem referentia." He viewed the dis- 
temper as mainly eruptive and pustular, and styled it " The 
Cow-pox Plague." And it is to be urged on grounds of just 
reasoning, that he was borne out by what he observed 
in viewing it as an inflammatory and phlegmonous disease, 
if not in the parallel he sought to draw with variola ; 
and that with his clear perceptions and sturdy diagnosis he 
could not have confounded it with any distemper such as the 
Pest. His general description is " that it was a malignant, 
pestilential fever, accompanied by rigors, followed by a burn- 
ing heat, quick pulse, difficulty of hreatldng, &'c." *But what 
light is thrown upon the pestilence by his examinations of the 
carcasses of those who fell victims to it ? 

" It was particularly observed that in the omasus or paunch, there 
was found a hard, compact body, finnly adhering to the coats of the 
ventricle, of a large bulk, and an intolerable smell ; in other parts, as 
in the hrain, lungs, cfec, were several hydatides, and lai'ge bladders, 
filled only with wind, which being opened gave a deadly stench ; 
there were also idcers at the root of the tongue and bladders filled 

* Kammazini Ed., 1716 ; Geneva, p. 787. 



56^ EINDEEPEST. 

with a serum on its sides. This hard and compact body, like challc, 
in the omasus, is the first product of the contagious miasms."* 

This description corresponds tolerably well, both in the 
sketch of living symptoms and the autopsy of the dead, with 
two other accounts : one by Michelotti, of the same mur- 
rain described by Eammazini, and one by Winder, of the 
plague which preceded it. 

In the year 1682, on the border of Italy, there arose a dis- 
temper among cattle, which spread into Switzerland, Wir- 
temburg and other provinces of the Empire, extending at the 
observed rate of nearly two German miles in twenty-four 
hours until it reached Poland. Its march was without inter- 
mission ; no neighboring parish escaped. It was a com- 
plete desolation. 

It seemed to propagate itself in tlie form of a blue mist, which fell 
upon those pastures where the cattle grazed, insomuch that whole 
herds returned home sick, being very dull ; forbearing their food, 
and most of them would die in twenty-four hours. Upon dissection 
there were discovered large and corrupted spleen, sphacelous and 
corroded tongues, and some had angina maligna. The 2^^1'sons who 
carelessly managed their cattle, without a due regard to their own 
health, were themselves infected, and died like their beasts. The 
method of cure was this: "The tongue was carefully examined, 
, and if they found any aphthcB or blisters, whether white, yelloio, or 
blade, they were obliged to rub, scratch and tear the tongue with a 
silver instrument until it bled ; they then wiped away the blood and 
corruption with new unwashed linen. This done, a lotion for the 
tongue was XTsed, made of salt and good vinegar." 

The antidote and remedial prescription were the same. 

" Take of soot, gunpowder, brimstone, salt,f equal parts ( a large 
spoonful for a dose), and as much water as is necessary to wash it 
down." 

Michelotti, was eye witness of the greater part of what 
he described, having been in the Venitian territories about 

* Philosoph. Trans. No. 338, p. 46; Vo!. VI of Abridgment, p. T9. 

t Doubtless, Mr. Needham, taking ttie popular side of tlie theory of identity of murrains in 
modern times, and ascertaining from c^tinental veterinaries, ttiat salt was the sovereign 
remedy, was induced in his elegant essay, read at Brussels in 1776, to recommend this agent as 
the specific remedy for the murrain of 1745, a view which Lataed proceeds to refute in his letter 
to Joseph Banks. Philosoph. Trans, uhi sup., and Cattle Plague, p. 305. 



GENERAL PATHOLOGY. 57 

October, 1711, and received the rest on the spot from persons 
of integrity and credit. His account bears the stamp of his 
extensive skill and repute as a doctor of medicine. We shall 
give it quite at length : 

" Almost all the sick cattle refused every kind of food and drink ; 
they hung their heads, had shiverings in their skin and limhs, they 
breathed with difficulty^ and their expiration in particular was 
attended with a sort of rattling noise ; they were so feehle that they 
could scarcely go or stand upon their legs. Some few of them eat a 
little and drank very much, others had fluxes of excrements variously 
colored, of an oflTensive smell, and frequently tinged with hlood ; many 
of them had their heads and their hellies swelled in such a manner, 
that in clapping them with the hand on the paunches, or along the 
vertebrae of the loins, they sounded like a diy bladder when full 
blown. In some the urine was very turbid, in others of a bright flame 
color. In comparing the pulses of the sound cattle with those of the 
diseased, he found the latter to be quicker and weaker. There was 
hut little heat perceivable by the touch in any of them ; their tongues 
were soft and moist, but their breath was exceedingly ofiensive. 
Besides these particulars, he was informed by those who attended 
the sick cattle, and by other persons worthy of credit, that in some 
of the beasts they had observed crude tumours in several parts 
of the body, as also watery pustules, and disoi-derly motions of the 
head, with dry, black and fissured tongues ; that in others there were 
tumours which came to maturation, with putrid matter issuing from 
the mouth and nostrils, worms in the faeces and in the eyes, bloody 
sweats and shedding of hair." 

The pathological description follows : 

" In comparing the flesh of the cattle dead of the distemjjer with 
that of others killed for the market, he found the muscles in the for- 
mer, lying immediately under the skin, to be something livid. Having 
opened the three cavities of the body, he applied himself with the 
utmost diligence to examine the brain, with its membranes ; the 
trachea, oesophagus, lixngs ; heart, with its auricles, the vena cava, 
aorta, and diaphragm ; the liver, spleen, and other parts of the lower 
belly ; in all which there was no discernible difference, either as to 
figure, size, contents, situation or connection with the neighboring 
parts, from what was observed in sound cattle, killed by the butcher, 
except the particulars hereinafter mentioned. The blood found in the 
ventricles of the heai't, in the pulmonary vessels, in the aorta and cava, 



58 EINDEEPEST. 

thougli still warm, was considerably blacJcish, and almost coagidated. 
In opening the upper and middle cavity, the scent was offensive, but 
tolerable enough ; whereas that proceeding from the lower belly was 
quite intolerable. In some few carcasses the viscera differed from 
their natural state, with regard to their size, their consistence, their 
contents, color and smell. In several X\\q paunch was found very much 
contracted and dried, and contained a hard substance. In others the 
lungs were swelled and livid, the liver tumefied, and the brain watery 
and initrid. Having oi'dered several of the cattle to be blooded, he 
found the blood not to issue out of the vessels in a continuous stream, 
but with a broken and interrupted flux, one part of it not immediately 

succeeding another He found it entirely coagulated without 

any separation of the serum, and attached to the sides of the vessels 
with a reticular pellicle in the surface exposed to the air. Of the eigh- 
teen who were bled, all died within a few days, except one which 
underwent the operation on its first being taken ill."* 

The symptoms and post-mortem appearances, as given by 
Michelotti, tally so well with those described by Lancisi, that 
here forbearing to reserve space for them, though somewhat 
tempted ; we will give them in an appendix to our classical 
and curious readers in their original text ; with some quota- 
tions also from Eammazini, not merely to show the exact 
relation which certain sentences generally quoted bear to the 
whole description, but to leave the critical in such matters to 
measure the unfairness, the reckless readiness, or the o'er- 
weening zeal with which such citations have been used. 

Had it not been necessary to summon the principal wit- 
nesses (men of erudition and renown in their age) with their 
entire declarative testimony, without perversion or gloss from 
hasty criticism ; that this investigation might be a thorough 
and impartial review of the distempers they observed : we 
might have been contented with a summary of the English 
distempers given by an admirer of Layard, who has preserved 
its ancient but quite forgotten synonym, Hyanstricking, a 
corruption doubtless of an Anglo-Saxon term, compounded of 
Hyau (cattle disease) and stric (plague) or strica (a stroke), 
indicating in the compound, either cattle plague or disease by 
which cattle are suddenly striclcen; from which we may infer 

* PMlOBoph. Trans. 1720, No. 365, p. 83. Vol. VI of Abridgment, p. 481. 



GENERAL PATHOLOGY. 59 

that our Anglo-Saxon ancestry were not free in remote 
periods from an outbreak of pestilence among their stock. 

In an appendix to a posthumous work on diseases of cat- 
tle and their cure, by J. Eowlin, a veterinary surgeon of con- 
siderable eminence, a century ago; an account is given of this 
distemper, in which the one of 1745 is distinguished from the 
one of 1765 : the common external sign of the former being 
" hlotclies arising all over the body," and of the latter the 
symptoms "in the roots of the tongue or glandular parts of 
the throat." The one is also described as an emph'i/sema, or a 
flatulent crackling swelling, attended with a mortifying Naclc- 
ness. In the other the primary symptoms are said to be evi- 
dent " by the mouth being generally open, and a matter fall- 
ing therefrom ; by opening the mouth you will find on one or 
both sides of the tongue a large hlacMsli colored substance, 
which will easily yield to the pressure of your finger." 

In fine, if, we undertake to separate from any authentic 
list of the symptoms and morbid appearances of the mur- 
rains which scourged the continent as well as England in the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ; in the first instance, 
those which are peculiar to and accompany all deadly dis- 
tempers of cattle ; and next those which indicate primary and 
idiopathic affections of the lungs, or constitute the invariable 
signs of catarrhal fever ; what is there left on which to base 
any diagnosis of a malady which, in its uncomplicated form, 
does not touch a single serous surface, does not of necessity 
involve the thoracic organs, but leaves its stamp solely on 
the mucous vestment? Where, at any rate, to take the most 
apparent indications, as tests even for untutored minds, where 
is the simple epithelial denudation of the mouth ? where the 
characteristic redness and aphthae of the vulva ? 

We insist, in the behalf of science, which sooner or later 
has modified, if not curbed, the fatal march of pestilence, 
that indistinct views and crude generalizations on this pest, 
or its theoretical pathology, should be banished at once from 
the field of observation ; and that facts, indisputable in them- 
selves and arranged according to the methods of scientific 
induction, should alone guide all future investigation as to 



60 EINDEEPEST. 

the nature or treatment of tliis distemper. We should as 
soon now deem it wise, from the vague descriptions given by- 
Homer or Plutarch of the cattle pestilence which prevailed 
in their days, or from the lines of Virgil in his Georgics, 

"Coiicidit, et mistum spumis vomit ore cruorem 
Extremosque ciet gemitus ... - 
- - - at ima 

Solvimtur latera, atque oculos stupor nrget inertes 
Ad terramque fluit devexo pondero cervix," 

or from any such meager materials, to theorize upon the 
pathology of the murrains which afflicted those ages, or their 
resemblance to or identity with those which have appeared 
in m^odern times ; as from the occasional pustules, inflamed 
follicles, or the congested epithelium observed in Einderpest, 
to ally it with variola, typhoid fever, or scarlatina in the 
human subject. 



But to proceed with the more positive share of our task. 
We have seen that the eruptions noticed on the flank and 
udder are papular (p. 39), not pustular, and that in a majority 
of cases they appear as indications of convalescence or reso- 
lution effected through the functions of the skin ; so that it is 
quite impossible to trace any parallel between the Pest and 
small pox, unless it be urged for the most fatal cases, where 
coma and death follow closely upon the first intimations of 
ailment, and the type of the former be sought in that most 
malignant form of the latter, known as Variola sine eniptione. 
All methods then, designed to ward off or mitigate an attack 
of the Pest by inoculation with variolous matter from the 
human subject, would, on grounds of similarity as to type 
between these diseases, and viewed theoretically, be con- 
demned as empirical; a conclusion amply confirmed by many 
abortive trials to prove it otherwise. So too, we must treat as 
fanciful the opinion lately advanced, that this epizootic should 
be regarded as an acute internal scarlatina; the reddened 
appearance of the mucous surfaces, unaccompanied by the 
rash, as in the human subject," presenting the only com- 
mon symptom. Yet we are happy to record the fact, that 
no attempt has been made, either for prophylactic or curative 



GENEEAL PATHOLOGY. 61 

ends, to transfer tlie poison of Scarlatina, into the veins of 
a Einderpest subject. 

Except in a few cases where vaccination may have intro- 
duced, in addition to the specific virus of the Pest, some 
typhoid germs, the inner surfaces of the viscera do not 
exhibit evidences of the degeneration peculiar to typhoid 
fevers, or observable in the muco-enteritis of cattle ; nor do 
the respiratory organs reveal serous effusion, as in typhoid 
pleuro-pneumonia. Dr. Tucker in his rejjort to the Lord 
Lieutenant of Ireland, while repudiating any theory of iden- 
tity, says : " The i^urijle gum, the black, saltless blood, and 
some other symptoms of the African typhus, may be recog- 
nized in the Einderpest." Why might not a parallel be 
drawn also with cholera, and influenza ? The answer to this 
and the refutation of all the fanciful conceptions to which 
we have alluded, is given by science, which has very recently 
exploded the old classification of diseases, and has grouped 
those which we have mentioned, with many others,* in one 
leading class of zymotic diseases (order, miasmatic). 

The word Zymotic is derived from the Greek of ferment, 
and was first suggested by Dr. Wm. Farr to indicate that 
diseases, so named, manifest in their course a destructive 
influence on the circulating medium, approaching as near as 
may be to fermentation, and due to the action of specific 
poisons of organic origin. These, like inorganic poisons 
introduced into the system, are found to obey certain general 
laws ; first, that each has a specific action, and secondly, lies 
latent in the system a certain though varying period of time, 
before its specific action is evinced; and thirdly, that the 
phenomena resulting from such action vary with the amount 
of poisonous matter taken into the system, and the receptivity 
of the patient. 

The miasmatic order of this class, as applied to the diseases 
of cattle, may be understood to embrace all diseases which 
are commonly ascribed to i)almlcd or animal malaria, all due 

* Sucli as chicken-pox, measles, quinsy and diphtheria, croup and hooping cough, ague, remit- 
tent, continued and 3'ellow fevers, ophthalmia, er3'sipelas, hospital gangrene and childbed fever, 
plague and carbuncle, dysentery and diarrhoea, &c. 



62 EINDEEPEST. 

to specific disease poisons, capable of propagation from one 
animal to another, and communicable either by direct contact 
or indirectly through various channels of intercourse.* 

It is frankly admitted that this or any classification would 
be valueless in the investigation of the Einderpest, unless it 
be conceded that this epizootic is wholly distinct from others, 
not only in its leading characteristics, but in its source or 
origin as a blood-poison. And it is principally in this latter 
sense, that we can pronounce it a disease " sui generis,''^ 
developed through the agency of a poisonous germ, which 
breeds after its own type, and multiplies "after its own kind," 
and by a process as regular and uniform as that (to use the 
emphatic though homely language of John Simon, medical 
officer of the Privy Council in his sixth report) " by which 
dog breeds dog, and cat breeds cat, and as exclusive as that 
by which dog never breeds cat, nor cat dog." 

The seminal principle or germ of the Pest being considered 
then as one and distinct from that of other epizootics, its vary- 
ing manifestations remain to be accounted for. Its develop- 
ment as to time and potency is dependent upon certain 
spheric conditions, and the different susceptibility of races 
and individuals. Prof. Koll states that for many years the 
cattle plague hung upon the Polish frontier without entering 
Austria, initil certain other diseases appeared among cattle 
and men, and then it became a general pestilence. As far as 
the historical records of other desolations among the lower 
orders of creation bear reliable testimony, this view is corro- 
borated. It is also confirmed by the cyclical periods which, 
as is claimed, mark the devastation of this plague in its 
native steppes. 

Again, it has been too frequently observed to admit of 
denial, that its fatality has been less marked with those cattle, 
of whom it may be said that the Pest is to their manor born, 
than among other races. Devons taken to Eussia, after thriv- 
ing admirably for a time, when brought within range of this 
distemper, yielded under its most frightful manifestations, 
and in droves. 

* See Aitken's Science of Medicine, Vol. 1, p. 200. 



GENERAL PATHOLOGY. 63 

So among the cattle first seen by Prof. Simonds in quaran- 
tine at Kamienica, a neigbborboocl which had then been free 
from the plague for eleven years, were four steppe oxen, three 
of which recovered, one having never sickened ; while of the 
native cattle, with whom these and six other steppe oxen 
were housed at this and an adjoining village, in sheds belong- 
ing to the same proprietor ; thirty-one, being the whole herd 
in one place, died within nineteen days after the steppe oxen 
arrived : and of the other lot, which included the four first 
mentioned, twenty-eight in all ; thirteen died and eleven were 
slaughtered.* 

The power of contagion being limited or increased by the 
operation of certain conditions in nature which it may be 
diflScult to define, or by varying developments of constitu- 
tional vigor (which may be equally vague in statement, 
though undeniable in fact) we are prepared to understand 
why in different climates and with different races of cattle, 
the sj^mptoms and the morbid anatomy may seem doubtful 
or conflicting in particulars, and yet center in a common 
type, to mark the specific action of a specific virus. 

Thus, where from any predisposing or dominant cause the 
force of the disease in its early incubation is expended on 
the membranes investing the brain (cerebellum, principally) 
or the spinal cord, we should exiject the twitchings, nervous 
rigors and fury, and the consequent effusions in those regions 
observed in Hungary and Galicia by Egan and Simonds. 

Where, again, as in the few cases referred to by Prof. Gam- 
gee, the concentrated action of the poison is seen in the tra- 
chea and its bronchial branches, we could hardly imagine 
relief from this obstruction of the respiratory functions in 
time for any reaction on the intestinal canal. And where, 
lastly, the grand onslaught of the distemper was in the latter 
direction, we might reasonably look for lesions so much more 
distinctly pronounced, that what seemed only aphthous ap- 
pearances in other cases might in these be imagined to be 

* Perhaps a more marked case is given by Dr. Weber, as occurring at Kamionlja Woloeka 
(Galicia), where 101 oxen, which were brought from Bessarabia, developed the contagion in the 
farmsteads in the village, so that 158 animals were attacked, of which 93 died ; only one of the 
imported oxen suflfered. 



64 UrNDEEPEST. 

ulcerations ; and glands which, in a vast majority of cases, 
seemed untouched, might give signs of purulent destruction. 
Making every reasonable allowance for different manifesta- 
tions in cases such as those we have given from Jessen, 
where the disease was induced by inoculation ; or for a predis- 
posing tendency to the typhoid state, muco-enteritis, pleuro- 
pneumonia and the like ; we are still able to group together 
all the seemingly conflicting indications, and define the gene- 
ral scope of this disease by its congestion of tlie mucous tissues, 
more or less diffused, and that congestion as mainly destruc- 
tive of the epithelial covering of these tissues. 

In the incubative stage, marked changes manifest them- 
selves in the condition of the blood, and the commencement 
of feverish action. We have seen (p. 22), that when the 
virus has once been absorbed, it permeates within a few hours 
every portion of the blood, rendering each drop a fresh 
medium for inoculating the healthy animal with the Pest. 
It would almost seem credible, that the poison is a vital 
germ, feeding upon the germ cells of the blood, appropriating 
its serous and driving off its saline constituents ; and propa- 
gating its kind until the red corpuscles become amorphous 
and shrivelled (see PL x, fig. 3). Gamgee, however, did not 
in his microscopic investigations, observe the serrated con- 
dition of the corpuscles noticed by Dr. Smart. In some 
cases he found "a great excess of white corpuscles, and in 
others delicate needle-shaped crystals, which are probably 
hsemato-crystalline,* form in the blood after this fluid has 
been drawn from the body."t (PI. x, figs. 4, 5 and 6). 

The moment that the normal balance in the blood con- 
stituents is disturbed, feverish action, which escapes notice 
by ordinary means of observation, is truly established. Gam- 

* These crystals may be regarded as evidence mostly of the decomposition which the blood 
undergoes, and of abnormal chemical combinations of its saline constituents. They resemble 
closely in form and appearance those recently obtained by Woemley in the methods proposed by 
him for the discovery of poisons when found in human tissues in minute quantities. For these 
correspondences, see his " Micro-chemistry of Poisons, PI. I, figs. 1, 2 and 3, where the forms 
of crystalline products are given, as revealed by the microscope magnifying, from 80 to 225 diame- 
ters ; the 1-250 gr. of chloride of potash having been tested by a minute trace of tart, soda ; 1-100 
gr. potash as nitrate, treated with bichloride of platinum in one case, and tartaric acid in the 
other, and in PI. IV, fig 4. where the crystals of tart-emet. from a hot super-saturated solution 
without any re-agent, are magnified 80 times ; and in other plates for the needle-pointed crystals. 

t See Cattle Plague, p. 64. 



GENERAL PATHOLOGY. 65 

gee, reviving the use of the thermometer,* first proposed 
in 1754 by De Haen, a celebrated Clinical teacher in the 
Hospital of Vienna, as the best aid in the diagnosis of 
pyrexia ; instituted a series of remarkable experiments in the 
use of one of Oasella's registering thermometers. He dis- 
covered an elevation of temperature in the earliest stage of 
the disease, varying from one to four degrees, Fahr., " jjrecefZ- 
ing the acceleration of tlie pulse and every otJier symptom." 

He inserted the bulb and about two inches of the stem of 
the thermometer within the vagina or rectum, and kept it in 
place a couple of minutes. To x>revent error in the use of 
the instrument, he adopted the precaution, between each 
observation, of dipping it in water (90° Fahr.) and used a 
few drops of Candy's disinfecting fluid for cleansing pur- 
poses. He found the temperature of these parts, when the 
animals were in a healthy condition, and the females not in 
the period of oestrum or sexual excitement, varying from 
100° to 101°, rising occasionally to 102°, and perchance, in 
a hot day or when driven from their pastures, " one or two- 
tenths more" than usual. He visited, on the 17th of Novem- 
ber, a stock of Ayrshires, at Oorehouse, near Lanark, where 
a cow seized on the 9th had died on the 14th, a second case 
occurred on the 15th, a third on the 16th; and where, on 
cursory examination, he found six more ill. On the 18th he 
examined forty-two cows with a thermometer dipped in water 
100° Fahr., before each observation, inserting the instrument 
in the rectum up to that portion of the stem marked 80°. Of 
this entire lot, one or two had slight discharge from the eyes ; 
one gave more marked indications in rapid respiration, one 
in urine of dark brown color, and a half dozen in scanty 
supply of milk. The rest were eating and ruminating, giv- 
ing full quantity of milk, &c. ; none had diarrhoea. " The 
temperature was recorded at 102° in one case ; at 104°, 1- in 
another ; at 104°, 8- in two ; from 105° to 106° in ten ; from 
106° to 107° in seventeen; in the rest from 107° to 107°, 8-. 
Twenty-five succumbed by the 22d inst., and only five were 
living on the 25th, " in spite of careful nursing and the best 

* Also tried by Dr. Sanderson (Sequel, &c., p. 13). 

9 



66 EINDEEPEST. 

medical treatment." Gamgee observed variations in the 
frequency of the pulse and temperature during the course of 
the disease, as Jessen did between the pulse and respira- 
tions ; also a sudden lowering of temperature with increased 
frequency of pulse from 120 upwards, a few hours before 
death. A gradual decrease of temperature until it reaches 
the normal standard prognosticates recovery.* 

It seems a matter of regret that Dr. Gamgee, who has 
evinced in all his researches, skill and learning of the highest 
order, should have felt such utter hopelessness of the efficacy 
of remedial treatment in i)oss6 if not in esse. Otherwise we 
think he might have gained another laurel to his veteri- 
nary prowess. Nothing seems to be clearer than this pro- 
position, that if the pest is to be properly regarded as a 
zymotic disease whether developing its fatal germs in the 
blood, on and in which they feed and multiply ; or by an 
action analogous to ferment, or that chemico - physiological 
action which Liebig has denominated catalysis, j)roducing 
abnormal changes in the circulating medium ; before the dis- 
integration of structures (the principal test of infection in 
disease) is manifested: or to take a more palpable illustration, 
to be viewed as poison from a venomous bite, which must be 
instantly neutralized, or whose absorption and propagation 
must be arrested without loss of time that life may be saved ; 
the treatment must be antidotal or destructive of the foreign 
germ-life, and attempted before the j)rocesses of decomposi- 
tion in the blood have gained much headway. And to this 
end the use of the thermometer as afresh proposed by Gamgee 
is indispensible, But it is unnecessary further to foreshadow 
the use to which we propose to put this method in the treat- 
ment we may recommend. 

The microscopic researches of Dr. Brauell, of Dorpat, 
made in Southern Eussia in 1861, extend, in some respects, 
the pathological views to be derived from the investigation 
of lesions heretofore given on the authority of Smart and 
others. He observed in the glands of the mouth and pha- 
rynx, new formations of cells simultaneously with (probably 

* Cattle Plague, pp. 40-44. 



GENERAL PATHOLOGY. 67 

before) the detacliment of the epithelium, and a more exube- 
rant mass of such cells in the glands of the fourth stomach, 
and small intestines, followed by the hsemorrhagic erosions, 
or so-called superficial ulcers. In the solitary glands of the 
small intestines, in a less marked form than in the Peyer 
glands, the cell development goes on, attended by the " so- 
called plastic exudations and croupous deposits from the 
follicles, the vesicular eruptions and the ulcers " of the glands 
described by authors ; all owing their origin to the nature of 
the cell changes. In the mucous glands of the membrane 
lining the respiratory passages, there is cell multiplication, 
associated with the extraordinary development of the ele- 
ments of connective tissue, whereby the detached masses are 
accounted for. The separation of these is the end of the 
process. 

Brauell aflSrms that there are never and nowhere exudations 
of lymph. He also notices differential manifestations as 
between the natural Rinderpest and that from inoculation. 

" The nodules which appear on the skin owe their origin to the 
modified development of the epidermic cells on small localized spots, 
from which the deeper sooner or later become detached and result in 
the dispersion of the nodules. The most superficial layer of the skin, 
wherever it is covered by each nodule, sometimes suffers molecular 
change." 

Perhaps the most important observation made by him in 
inoculated cases, is that, in the lateral ventricles of the brain, 
and particularly under the arachnoid over the cerebrum, 
exudation is met with.* 

It may not be easy of comprehension how the imbibition of 
the virus through the organs of the skin, should produce 
such marked cerebral disturbances, not consequent upon its 
inhalation by the lungs, or its absorption by the mucous 
surfaces of the mouth, nose, &c. When this statement of 
Dr. Brauell is connected with the general testimony of all 
observers, that in a multitude of cases where the pest has 
been induced by the setou or puncture, the lesions are more 
extensive and serious ; it may lead us, as a teaching of practical 

* Et ubi supra. (Cattle Plague, pp. 66-69.) 



68 RINDERPEST. 

sagacity, not only to avoid inoculation as a method of cnre, 
and to guard the entire dermic structure of subjects exposed 
to contagion by cleansing and care ; but in some measure, at 
least, to adapt their treatment, when ill, to the consideration, 
however conjectural it may seem, that the secernent function 
of the skin is the most important instrumentality by which 
the poison may be counteracted or eliminated. 

Lest we may seem to speak slightly of the inoculative 
method, which we cannot recommend as a therapeutic or pre- 
ventive agent, we will add a brief sketch of the efforts made to 
test it as an agency of cure. The seeming success which result- 
ed from inoculation for small-pox in the human subject, led to 
great hopes of the efficiency of a similar use of the poison of 
the distempers of the last century. England, which was 
prompt through Dobson, in 1754, and Dr. FlcDiynge, in 1755, 
publicly to approve the method, exhibited the same decision 
in proclaiming it a failure. The first tabulated series of expe- 
riments, were made under the direction of the famous Camper, 
on a small island on the southwest of Zeeland, of which ac- 
counts are preserved for three years prior to 1773. In 1770, 
sixty-one animals were inoculated, by threads charged with 
the virus and passed beneath the skin, of which eighteen 
recovered and forty-two died ; one not having sickened. Of 
those treated in the next two years, a fraction of over one- 
third did not catch the contagion, and the number of deaths 
reported was three. 

Gamgee, in his review of this subject, deems the experi- 
ments of 1770 most reliable, as he found in the accounts 
for the two succeeding years, records* " of long periods of 
incubation, and constant recovery, quite incompatible with 
our existing knowledge of the disease." 

The success of Dr. Barrasch, who inoculated twenty-five 
hundred cattle in Hungary, of which only seventy-five died, 
and the serious losses of Eussia, amounting, as was esti- 
mated, to ten millions of roubles annually, led to the appoint- 
ment of a commission with the view of extirpating the pest 

* These may be regarded as additional evidence that the distemper of that period was not the 
Rinderpest. 



GENERAL PATHOLOGY. 69 

among tlie steppe oxen and on their native pastures. Jessen 
and Unterberger conducted the experiments, which were 
first tried with the virus taken from a subject who had taken 
the pest naturally; then from one so inoculated, making the 
first remove, and so on until they obtained and used the 
virus in the tenth remove. With great alternations of large 
percentages of recoveries and failures ; with instances of 
immunity in the midst of surrounding pestilence, which 
inoculation, wherever tried, had not stayed or much amelio- 
rated ; with a tabulated record, though on a small scale of 
50 per cent loss with matter in the first and ninth remove, 66§ 
per cent with that in the third remove, and no loss whatever 
with that of the second, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth 
and tenth: it is difficult to discover any method for the 
arrangement of such statistics and the evolvement of any 
scientific formula. 

The impression that steppe cattle might be advantageously 
fortified in this way, was modified by the observation that 
inoculation must be accompanied by mild and uniform 
weather, and followed up by careful nursing. 

The recent trial on steppe animals at Karlowka, in 1864, 
in which of three hundred and forty-nine inoculated animals, 
the sickness consequent upon the operation was so remark- 
ably intense, that only ten were declared to be " not severely 
aifected," accompanied by the fact that there are in the steppe 
regions of Southern Eussia herds among which the pest has 
not prevailed in ten, twenty, and in one case forty years, give 
great force to the practical question put by Prof. Unter- 
berger, whether such experiences do not prove how disad- 
vantageous under certain circumstances protective inoculation 
may be even in the steppe regions. 

Jessen, whose loss in the treatment by inoculation of the 
stock of the Grand Duchess Helena Paulowna, has been 
reported at ninety per cent, does not pronounce so decidedly 
against the method as his colleague, although he admits 
great losses by inoculation with fresh matter. He sums up 
his report with the following conclusions : 



70 EINDEKPEST, 

I. Animals having had the Rinderpest three to four years pre- 
viously, cannot be infected again. 

2-3. Vaccination in the first generation (taken from diseased ani- 
mals), on sound cattle, after they have passed through the disease, frees 
them from further infection, 

4. The loss by first generation is too large to recommend itself 

5. The vaccine can be mitigated by second generation, producing 
only a slight aifection. 

6. This slight affection is also a preservative against new infection. 

7. Vaccination in older animals often fails, probably because they 
have had it. 

8. Vaccination sometimes does not take, and yet they take the 
plague naturally afterwards. 

9. Some cattle show no symptoms of disease after vaccination, and 
yet they seem to be proof against infection. 

10. Well preserved vaccine keeps good for a few days, even in hot 
summer. 

II. It is yet to be discovered on which day of the disease to take 
the virus, to get its full power. 

12. The tears, even diluted with distilled water, remain infectious 
(these and the nasal mucus having been used for vaccination). 

To these may be added other conclusions arrived at by 
Gamgee, who obtained 40 per cent of recoveries in experi- 
ments by inoculation in seventy-five cases, and who, besides 
refusing to recommend this method as a preventive ; noticing 
the aggravations resulting from cold, wet and exposure ; 
declaring the means adopted for cultivating or modifying the 
virus unsatisfactory and unreliable ; and any liquid from the 
body of a sick animal capable of becoming a medium for 
inoculation, adds : 

1. The cutaneous eruption not constant in natural Rinderpest is 
usually seen in inocu.lated animals. 

2. Sheep can be inoculated from cattle, and again cattle from sheep, 
without modifying the virulence of the virus. 

3. Glycerine modifies and then destroys the virus, as in the case of 
pleuro-pneuraonia (typhoid ?) 

4. Animals escaping after inoculation, without indicating the 
characteristic symptoms, are not protected from future attacks. 

5. The produce from progeny of animals which have had the 
Rinderpest, is as susceptible to an attack as any other.* 

* Cattle Plague, pp. 198 and 199. 



GENERAL PATHOLOGY. 71 

The science of Pathology which has made such mighty 
strides during the last half century, has yet to search out the 
nature and perchance figure the form of those poisonous 
germs which develop zymotic disease ; to give them distinct- 
iveness by due classification, and to separate or identify 
their action on and power over the animal economy, with 
those of the well known poisons of the mineral or vegetable 
world, especially, perhaps, of the sporules of the various 
tribes of fungi. The work though vast, is not beyond present 
hope. It has now all the preparation needed lo justify 
the loftiest claim, and maintain the highest attitude of 
expectancy. The microscope which has depictured and 
classified the various forms of spermatozoids constituting 
the generative power of the divers species of the animal 
kingdom; which has counted the number of the dust 
sporules* which feed upon vegetable products useful to 
man and beast, and which, as we have seen, reveals to the 
eye the various shapes of blood corpuscles when invaded by 
various parasites of variant diseases, may yet so group its 
subtle lenses and direct their ken into such unexplored 
hiding places, and triumphantly parade the tiniest instru- 
ments of torture which the common enemy of all things 
living employs. t While we await with becoming patience, 
such wondrous revelations, we are not without the analogies 
of nature in disease to assist and advance our investigations. 

Dr. Salisbury, of Ohio, in the presence of an alarming 
epidemic of scarlatina, inoculated himself and family with 
the smut of the Indian corn, produced an eruption and fever 
similar to that of the prevailing distemper, and effectually 
warded off the contagion. Had he gone a step further, and 
ingrafted the poisonous fluid developed by this coniomycete 
upon a healthy structure, he would have identified or shown 

* The sporule of the Uredo segetum, one of the most minute of the couiomycetous fungi which 
attacli gramineous plants, has been decyphered as equal in size to l-7,860,000th part oJ an inch 
square. 

+ The most serious diiBculty in the present extension of microscopic vision, which has re- 
vealed the multiplication of bacteria and low animal and vegetable organisms by powers esti- 
mated at 3,000 diameters, does not seem to lie in a further extension of micrometric power, but in 
the transparency of these infinitesimal germs ; a difficulty which may soon be remedied by the 
ingenious adaptations of enthusiastic observers. 



72 EINDEEPEST. 

tlie disparate action of the inoculate and natural forms of the 
scarlet infection. We know that a pregnant heifer may, by 
ergotized grain, or grasses infested with fungoid growth, sud- 
denly abort, and unless removed from her associates of the 
byre, the poisonous exudations from the vulva will produce 
like disaster upon the entire pregnant stable; leaving 
in the future for all such aborting from the contagious 
matter, less chance of carrying their next foetal burdens 
to full development, than in the case of the one which 
miscarried under the action of the 'vegetable poison. 
So that there may be in nature a general law by which cer- 
tain poisons, vegetable as well as mineral, may become poten- 
tized in their victims, and taking to themselves a more 
deadly virus, spread the most virulent infection. Strange as 
the announcement of such a doctrine, mysterious as the con- 
version or cooperation of such agencies may be ; they do not 
afford so great a puzzle to the understanding, as that by 
which we are called upon to account for the first developed 
case of any contagion, whether of small pox or cholera in 
the human race, or of any of the deadly murrains in the 
bovine. 

We state the difficulty which is experienced in the scientific 
world, without insisting upon any theory, conjectural or imag- 
inary. It is enough to dispel existing delusions which trace the 
sources of contagion solely to malarious vapors or atmos- 
pherical degenerations, or again, to active animal or vegeta- 
ble parasites, or to any other source than that of poisonous 
vitalized germs. 

It is impossible to deny the vitality of pus corpuscles in 
ophthalmia, in the public nurseries or hospitals provided for 
children ; or of their minute offsets (revealed with wondrous 
power of subdivision under the microscope), as they are trans- 
ported through the air, remain dormant on clothes, com- 
municated by towels, until they reach the conjunctiva, pre- 
pared, in under-tone or by morbid process, for the supply of 
nutrient matter for these putrid germs. The statistics of 
surgical cases in our armies during the late war confirm the 
observations made elsewhere, that pus globules invade the 



GENEKAL PATHOLOGY. 73 

system of one recovering from the primary effects of wounds 
or amputation, and carry liim off with pyaemia. 

Like observations as to syphilitic or gonOrrhoeal pus, the 
poisonous matter of puerperal fever, or the more familiar 
illustration of vaccine lymph, give confirmation suited to the 
general mind of the theoretic views we have advanced, and 
which are so thoroughly supported by the researches of Prof. 
Boeck. 

But the nature of this exotic germ-life which, when intro- 
duced into the vital economy, is the harbinger of pestilence, 
is not to be explained by (as the morbid germs themselves are 
not to be confounded with) the animalculse observed in the 
dying organism. The bacteria which have been revealed by 
the microscope, prove only the previous destruction of tissue 
and its advanced state of decomposition ; such relation being 
reversed, however, in the case of parasitical growths. 

Should we pass over, although not precisely relevant in 
this connection, another condition, under which this morbid 
germ-life may be sustained, we should be guilty of a neglect 
which might result in great practical injury. 

It may not be easy to prove that the germ cells of the Pest 
or other infectious disease can multiply in excrementitious 
matter as in the living body. But it would be unsafe to 
consider the exuviae when kept moist and of a moderate 
degree of heat,* as incapable .of furnishing the media for 
such propagation, unless we had reason to conclude that the 
matters thrown off by the bowels or otherwise, contained 
none of the nutrient matter, on which these germs of pesti- 
lence might feed, or the enveloping substances in which they 
might lie dormant and be preserved. For all practical pur- 
poses, and as the first law of hygiene applicable to such cases, 
all matters thrown off from the organism that is contending 
with the Pest, should be regarded as a fresh nidus of infec- 
tion ; unless thoroughly disinfected by chlorine, carbolic or 
sulphurous acids or the like. 

* Prof. Hertwig stated at the First luternational Veterinary Congress, a case where dung of 
diseased animals, even after it had lain in % frozen state for four weeks, was known to have trans- 
mitted infection. (Gamgee's Cattle Plague, p. 479.) Even the water in which Rinderpest flesh 
(whether previously salted or not) has been washed, if drank by cattle otherwise untainted, will 
produce an outbreak ; as will the hawking about of the flesh. (lb., p. 36.) 

10 



74 RINDERPEST. 

Here it may be desirable to insist upon tbe necessity 
of a very careful diagnosis. This should be made at the 
earliest possible opportunity of observation, and then with 
all the precision which scientific research demands. We have 
already observed the great importance of thermometric obser- 
vations as testing the commencement of feverish action at a 
time anterior to its sensible perception by ordinary methods. 
Where the means of applying this test are not afforded, it 
will be proper to observe the condition of the papillae of the 
buccal cavity (and where easily done of the Schneiderian mem- 
brane) before epithelial desquamation has taken place. These 
will show to the eye (more thoroughly if aided with an ordi- 
nary lens), enlargement if not engorgement, in the uprising 
of small round nodules (seldom according to Jessen larger 
than a millet seed), with marked redness beginning at the 
apex. The papillae are still covered with epithelium, be- 
neath which, after a little while, a yellowish or yellowish 
gray fluid can be seen. Within twenty-four hom^s, the invest- 
ing membrane breaks away, and if the neighboring papillae 
are not then affected, the minute orifice may soon be hidden 
and heal ; but if they are, their cicatrices become confluent, 
the epithelium is rolled off in masses, the scarlet redness of 
the subjacent mucous membrane is quite apparent, with irre- 
gular marginal outline. As others in a widening circle 
become affected, redden, and desquamate towards the outer 
rim, the central portion thus run over, loses its ruby tinge, 
and gradually assumes an aphthous or gray appearance, mis- 
taken by the ignorant for an ulcer. 

The philosophy of this action in these minute nodules can 
only be fully revealed through microscopic teachings, which 
show that each papilla and the villi (fringe-like hairs which 
emanate from it and give to all mucous membranes, more 
especially in the smaller bowels, a velvety appearance), are 
furnished with a complete vascular plexus (arterial mainly 
in the villi*) ; and that through such exceedingly delicate net- 
work the diseased blood corpuscles are borne, and are thus 
enabled to expend their peculiarly destructive action upon 

* See Quain's Anatomy. 



GENERAL PATHOLOGY. 75 

the speck-like expanse of epithelium which invests the exter- 
nal surface of this miniature circulation. 

Whether these processes of congestion and desquamation 
in the Pest are precisely the same in epizootic aphtha or 
eczema, is not probable, if analogy be sought with the ob- 
served action of the latter disease in the fourth stomach, (see 
p. 40,) where hsemorrhagic or apoplectic effusion and erosion, 
sometimes attended or followed by melanotic deposits, seem 
to take the place of the simpler lesions which result from pure 
capillary congestion in the former malady. N"o careful inqui- 
sition has, as far as we can learn, been as yet instituted to 
demonstrate or disprove in the membranes lining the mouth 
and pharynx, the difference of action just indicated. 

The appearance to the eye of these lesions in the mouth 
and the common phenomena of smacking the lips, of aphthous 
eruption and salivary discharge, are said to be the same 
in both affections ; and to distinguish between the two, 
resort is had in order to identify the eczema, to the morbid 
condition of the cleft of the lame foot, the papulae on the 
teats and the symptoms of congestion and inflammation of 
the udder.* 

The unwary might also easily be deceived by the redness 
of the vagina which exists in the case of those that have 
recently calved, or aborted after long gestation, or who 
arrive at the period of sexual excitement ; if looking only at 
the arterial color of the parts to which the unusual flow of 
blood is directed in these processes of nature, they should im- 
agine a general papillary congestion to have taken place, not 
to be resolved and fade away without epithelial disorganiza- 
tion. 

Nay, it is further said, that in those who are ruminating in 
pastures and daily yielding a full flow of milk, a like rubes- 
cent demonstration not unfrequently takes place, so that the 
mere indications of color may be fallacious. Unless then, the 
sanguineous tinge of the vulva be seen on the near approach 
or in immediate presence of the Epizootic Pest, it would be 

* Gamgee's Cattle Plague, p. 56. 



76 RINDERPEST. 

no sure sign. If the eye, unaided, could not detect en- 
gorged or discliargiiig papillae, a lens should be brought into 
requisition, before the true pathological sign should be antici- 
pated, the destruction and peeling off of the epithelium. 

We will briefly notice other sources of illusion. The dis- 
charge from the eyes and nose occurs in many affections, 
fatal or transient ; but in the Pest, it soon becomes glairy 
and changes to what is termed a turbid secretion. Yet it 
would be absurd, in view of the pathology of the murrains 
of the last century we have so fully detailed ; to confound 
this discharge with the purulent one, resulting from a phleg- 
monic or ulcerous condition of the system ; neither should the 
prediction be too easily made, that the initial watery flow, 
however copious, would readily be changed to one of more 
significant consistence or color. Gamgee gives an apt illustra- 
tion* of this, from cases occurring at his establishment in Edin- 
burgh, during a series of inoculation experiments, conducted 
by a commission of the French government. Great care was 
exercised in the purchase of animals free from the distemper, 
in order that such experiments might be wholly reliable. 

Three animals were purchased one day, receiving the guar- 
anty of the seller as being free from any contamination with 
the prevailing epidemic. They had each, however, the glairy 
discharge from eyes and nose, but did not develop any 
further evidences of ailment. It appeared, on inquiry, that 
they had been exposed to easterly winds in an ill-sheltered 
field, and the discharge was only diagnostic of a slight catarrh. 

Greater complication arises mainly from discrepant author- 
ities, perchance from inherent causes, as to the proper diag- 
nostic position of the lung and skin symptoms. 

Smart aflSrms that " there is no cough or lung symptoms 
in the pure and uncomplicated examples of the disease," but 
limits the respiratory changes to a prolonged outhreath (p. 23). 
Egan, Gooch and Gamgee notice a short, dry or husky cough, 
with difficulty in breathing (Gooch), attended by more noise 
in expiration than in pleuro-pneumonia (p. 24). These may, 
at the commencement of the attack, be regarded as merely 

* Gamgee'8 Cattle Plague, p. 49. 



geneeaij pathology. 77 

nervous demonstrations, pointing to cerebellar or spinal irrita- 
tion. But if they do not shortly subside, if with the cough 
the head is kept depressed and protruded, and a spasmodic 
action of the nostrils and flanks sets in, serious pulmonary 
paralytic action, if not lesion, must be apprehended. Gam- 
gee, combatting the observations and authority of Smart, 
insists that emphysema occurred in many cases under his 
eye, usually beginning in the anterior lobes; the modus 
operandi of the peculiar respiration induced, being explained 
by Dr. Weber, who says that the anterior intercostal spaces 
become somewhat fixed, while the jjosterior true ribs are 
raised with an effort and sink rapidly.* The signs which 
attend this forceful outbreath on percussion have been given 
(p. 41 and note). Auscultation reveals rales of various 
pitches, either accompanying the vesicular murmur or super- 
seding it. The sounds of the heart are inaudible and impulse 
imperceptible on the left side.* But these furnish indications 
of a fatal resolution, and are not to be regarded as among 
the earlier symptoms. 

The cutaneous eruption which frequently occurs on the 
neck, back and teats, justifies a favorable prognosis, if occur- 
ring in the earlier stages ; but if, instead of drying up and 
scaling off, the papules remain or multiply, and the color of 
the skin becomes a dirty yellow, desquamation of the epider- 
mis becoming general, and the surface of the neck and of the 
integuments extending over the crops becomes greasy from a 
sebaceous secretion (see p. 39 and note, &c.), then coma 
and death may be speedily anticipated. In the first issue 
the relief that is afforded to the perspiratory energies, with- 
out serious impairment of the subcuticular structures, is 
communicated to the nervous centres, and a rallying of the 
sustaining power is soon manifest. But if, as in the second 
issue, the destruction of the epithelial cells of the skin pro- 
ceeds far enough to involve to any great extent the nervous 
periphery; the ganglia, cord and brain labor with the barest 
possibility of recuperation of energy. 

* Gamgee's Cattle Plague, p. 49. 



78 



EINDERrEST. 



It is ill view of the preservation of this balnuce of nervous 
power in struggling' nature, or, if more precisely phrased, 
of the salient energies of the filamentous nervous expanse 
reticulating- about every gland and perspiratory orifice of the 
skin ; that we may find a clue to the mystery in which we 
were conteut for the time being to remain, when we did not 
essay in a previous connection (see p. 60) to explain the cereb- 
ral disturbances, produced by the burrowing of the inoculative 
virus throughout the epidermic cells and their mucous sub- 
strata. Nor can we find time to dwell upon this problem in 
physiology, or deduce auy corollary, except as presage of the 
practical use to which we may apply it in the treatment 
recommended. 

The nature of these eruptions on the skin we have seen not 
to be vesicular. AVherever they have appeared to be partly 
umbilical, the Pest is complicated with ordinary cow pox ; 
Ganigee giving the assurance that he had never seen an 
eruption of this description where the previous existence of 
the vaccine pustule could be doubted. Moreover, this erup- 
tion is not to be mistaken for the maculae or petechiiB which 
are met with in typhus of the human subject ; the former of 
which are slightly elevated spots of a dusky pinkish red color, 
somewhat like the stains of mulberry juice, fading under 
I)ressure, but changing sometimes to the nature of the latter, 
which are of a dusky crimson or purple color, numerous and 
closely compacted, unaftected by pressure. IS'either these 
eruptions, the appearance of the tongue, the pyrexic period, 
the general absence of capillary congestion in the bowels, the 
red serosity found in almost every serous cavity, the deep 
dusky red hue of every sti'ucture in contact with the blood, 
in which the salts are increased instead of being diminished ; 
the absence of bile acids and the presence of tyrosine and 
leucine (p. 38); nor the absence of exhausting diarrha?a ; the 
deep inspiration followed by short respirations in rapid suc- 
cession ; the wasting of the involuntary muscles ; the soft- 
ening of the heart and the atrophy of the brain which 
occur in typhus, furnish any common basis from which we 
may view the Pest as its counterpart ; nor for the justifica- 



GENERAL PATHOLOGY. 79 

tion of the synonym given to it on the Continent, " Typhus 
bourn contagiosus," or " Le typhus contagieux des betes bo- 
vines" of the French school. 

Time will not permit us to notice all those marked symp- 
toms and lesions of typhoid fever (in themselves very numer- 
ous and variable) which are not to be found in the vast ma- 
jority of cases in the Pest. We may briefly specify the 
greater redness observed on the surface of the mucous 
membrane in the latter disease (compare the capillary conges- 
tion of the small bowels, P. IV. fig. I) or the engorged spaces 
between the rugae of the caecum (PI. YIII fig. I), with Pis. 
OXII, OXIII, OXIV, of Lebert,* where the mucous surfaces 
of the smaller bowels do not show congestion beyond ery- 
thema ; this faint rosy or pinkish redness being a character- 
istic of typhoid exanthemata in the smaller bowels, as con- 
firmed bytbe previous exposition of Cruveilhier (Liv.7Pls.l-3). 
This congestion quite limited to the ileum ; the deepening 
erythema investing the solitary glands, leaving the adjacent 
tissue almost ansemic; the ulceration of these glands, as also 
of those clustered in groups, (Peyer's patches or plates) start- 
ing from within the mucous bed and inducing frequently 
gangrene, not only opening out upon the inner surface, but 
perforating sometimes the peritoneal coat ; the invariable en- 
largement of the mesenteric glands and of the spleen ; to- 
gether with infiltration and consequent solidification of the 
lungs, previously adverted to, (p. 41) make a more marked de- 
I)arture from the type of the Pest in typhoid than in typhus 
fever. Yet, however, it must be constantly borne in mind 
that vital depression, which is the leading characteristic of 
what is commonly called the typhoid state in disease, is man- 
ifest in the Pest from the first stages until convalescence is 
established. 

The exanthematous process which shows itself, as we have 
seen in the agminated and solitary glands, producing slight 
rubescence, then injection, tumidity and enlargement, ordi- 
nates the general progress of what is commonly described as 
follicular growth. When the enlargement has reached its 

* Traite Anatomie Pathologique, Gen. et spec par H. Lebert. Paris, 1855-61. 



80 BINDEEPEST. 

acme two variations occur; in dimiuisbed or suppressed 
secretions from tlie glands or follicles, or in its becoming more 
abundant; in wbich last case are manifested alternative 
methods of disposing of the fluid secreted ; in its either being 
poured out in the membrane very freely, or in being retained 
in the cavity of the follicle, becoming inspissated and under- 
going various other secondary changes.* The progressive 
stages of exanthematous action thus defined, give enabling 
facility to explain the seemingly discrepant statements given 
by difterent observers as to the manifestations of the Pest on 
the intestinal canal ; in the apparently opposite show of diar- 
rhoeic discharges, unmixed with mucus, as in the majority of 
cases (see p. 2G, &c.,) observed by Smart and others ; in 
more acute cases tinged with blood, becoming dysenteric in 
appearance, «&c. ; in others jjartaking of the character of rice 
water stools, and, as in the vaccinated cases, leaving traces 
of purulent destruction. Yet we are not, by reason of such 
occasional manifestations, to misapprehend the general nature 
of this Pest for muco-enteritis or dysentery, as the principal 
seat of such lesions is in the tubular glands (follicles'of Lie- 
berkiihn) of the large intestines. 

The occasional occurrence of rice-water stools intimates that 
in the acutest form of the catarrhal inflammation of the 
mucous coat of the intestinal canal, we have some approach 
to the rapid and fatal exhaustion of cholera ; this leads us to 
dwell briefly upon the lesions of the latter disease, which 
bear not only to the ordinary observer, but to the skillful eye 
of the pathological anatomist, some very singular resem- 
blances. During the period of transudation, Ave find the same 
separation of the water and salts of the intercellular fluid of 
the blood through the mucous membrane of the intestinal 
canal, resulting in the same colliquative discharges r>er 
anum, and the inspissation of the blood itself, which becomes 
dark and tarry (p. 38). The hypertrophied muscles, after 
death, show on section the same dark purple red color, with 
a shade of blue or violet (p. 30), although, according to Eoki- 
tansky, this peculiar iridescence is shown in other aftections.t 

* Rokitansky's Patholog. Anat., Vol. Ill, p. 56. 

t Typhus, ncnte convulsions, scurvy, cyanosis, and in persons suflfocated. Vol. HI, p. 304. 



GENEKAL PATHOLOGY. 81 

We notice in the pest less marked absence of external heat, 
comparatively little tendency to the suspension of the de- 
carbonizing- function of the lung--cel]s ; and while in the intes- 
tinal canal the follicular structure is equally involved in both 
maladies, though in a different manner, and except in the 
rare cases seen in Pest, with discharges of a totally different 
character ; the congestive process in its earlier stages sug- 
gests its rationale as well as that of these variations. 

We need not reiterate that we do not seek to build up any 
theory of identity or analogy except that which is necessi- 
tated by the common zymotic character which pervades all 
pestilences. Having given the few points in which their 
orbital paths find conjunction, we still desire as far as i)rac- 
ticable within the narrow compass of a General Eeport to 
project the direction of their courses in departure. We shall 
collate two descrijitions of such variations from Perigoif, 
whose recondite observations on cholera accompanied by 
remarkable illustrations of lesions (also of microscopic re- 
searches) are to be found in his Anatomie Pathologique, &c. 
Premising that in the congestive stages of this disease, we 
are met with deeper blood-tinting than in any of the affec- 
tions of the human frame, we have before referred to ; we find 
it necessary to show other manifestations in these stages in 
the two diseases, between which it is now proposed to mark 
the difference. Perigoflf gives in PI. II, fig. 3, (in a case 
of death in typhoid stage), the sanguineous coloring of 
membrane less deeply tinged than others given by him, 
which on cursory examination would seem to be identical with 
that described by Smart (p. 32 and PL III). Sanguineous 
effusion upon the mucous membrane in dots occurs also 
in simple cholera; and when multiplied in an aggravated case 
j)resents an appearance of dark ecchymosis, bordering upon 
what is elsewhere described by Perigoff, as the incipient stage 
of mortification. His PL V, A, fig. 3, gives a view of 
the sigmoid flexure of the colon in the transition from the 
algid to the typhoid stage which bears a closer resem- 
blance to the inoculated cases in Pis. VI and VII (pp. 28 
and 30). You can easily see in all of Smart's drawings 
11 



82 RINDERPEST. 

that tlie scarlet tiuge we are noticing is tlie result only 
of the congestion of the minute and intricate network 
of the capillaries, the attendant sign of this vascularity 
being always present ; while in these plates of Perigoif, this 
gorging of the arterial plexus is not apparent, the blood 
seems rather to be effused, its particles impaired and aggre- 
gating by some molecular attraction (not of course as in 
the normal adhesion of the rouleaux) ; in short, in the first 
plate referred to, a bright red, in the second the deep crim- 
son tinge quite approximating to a dark red ecchymosis. 
The mucous membrane in both plagues is peeled off or abrad- 
ed ; but in the choleraic cases, by a different process, and by 
a movement starting at a deeper point in the mucous tissue 
than in most cases of the Pest, being covered with mucosity 
as well as with detached epithelium ; and when these are 
removed, presenting not simply the spots of membrane run 
over by vascular engorgement and left seemingly aphthous; 
but depressed eschars in the surrounding membrane which 
is puffed up and ansemic* 

AVhen we follow Perigoff to his Microscopic Eesearches in 
cholera, we find his tracings of engorgement of the solitary 
glands and Peyer's plates, and their transformations ; of capil- 
lary congestion of the villi (villosities of the continental 
schools), as well as the deeper burro wings in the mucous coat ; 
confirming to a large extent the observations previously 
made, and giving the starting point, of congestion, infiltra- 
tion and exudation in most if not all zymotics. We must 

* For conflrmation of these and more singular indications and processes of abnormal action and 
illustrations of its rationale, see pi. V. A., fig. 1, where Brunuer's glands decpl}' inflamed, sur- 
rounded b}' injection are ready to ulcerate, summits j'ellow and containing pus ; the membrane 
(duodenum) swollen and presenting traces of dysenteric exudation ; also fig. 2 in same plate, 
where the mucous membrane completely hypertemical, is covered by thick adherent greenish yel- 
low effusion, composed of the debris of plastic globules, epithelial cells, &c. PI. VIII. gives sec- 
tion of the colon of one who had suftered from chronic diarrhosa when cholera supervened, and 
shows the aphthous appearance resulting from the former affection, with hj^perremia and sanguin- 
eous effusion in the intervening spaces from the latter. Ulcerations of Peyer's plates were seen 
but three times and then in the cholero-typhoide period. Comp. pi. IX., flg. 5 & U. PL XII. gives 
section of stomach in diptheritic cholera, the mucous membrane being hj^perajmic, and covered 
in places by patches of adherent gray exudation, these surrounded by a grey areola ; when the 
patches are scraped off', the subjacent membrane very hyperremical. (Comp. pi. VI., fig. 2.) In the 
case where the stomach was covered more or less with mushrooms (eaten in Lent by a Russian), 
the membrane showed a swollen appearancee, being described as in "uu etat catarrhal aigu"— 
hypersemic with punctated injection. 



GENEEAL PATHOLOGY. 83 

refer tlie curious iu such details to the subjoined translation* 
of the text expository of these minute portraitures. The 
deficiency of its proper salts in Einderpest blood has been 
previously noticed (p. 38). In the inquiries prosecuted by 
Dr. A. Ganigee to ascertain the changes which this and other 
fluids underwent in the earlier and progressive stages of the 
disease ; no attempt was made to ascertain the percentage 

* Pathological alterations of the mucous membrane of intestines, enlarged 50 
to 400 times, as given by PerigofF in explanation of his Plate XVI. 

Fig. 1. Peyer'8 plates (glands) of ileum, tumefied by simple choleraic processes, enlarged eight 
times ; mxccous membrcme detached, muscular covering naked. Plate of Peyer looked like a 
bunch of grapes, composed of semi-transparent vesicles reposing upon the mucous membrane, 
and covered by villosities. When magnified, the epithelial cells, their nuclei and globules, resem- 
ble somewhat the microscopic elements of vecani plastic exudations. 

Figs. 6-9. Isolated follicles of mucous membrane represented under aspect of vesicles, a little 
swelled, as in chronic maladies of mucous membrane, and surrounded by &bloody areola. 

Fig. 7. Shows enlarged by microscope nearly 30 times, little flj^-spots (mouchetures), round and 
blackened : met on mucous merabraue, near the isolated crypts in the typhoid stage of cholera 
and chrojiic diarrhoea, shown under the form of an areola, composed of the vessels of the sub-mu- 
cous coat ; at circumference and center of areola, sometimes numerous blackened points or fly 
spots, being the ruins of bloody globules escaped from the vessels and dispersed in the 
mucous tissue. Sulphate of iron enters into their composition, as is proved by its solubility in 
Hydro-chloric acid. The contents of these crypts resemble epithelial cells, and their nuclei; 
more than pyoid and plastic globules. 

Fig. 8. Isolated follicles, tumefied, enlarged 10 times and covered with villosities, which are 
swelled and engorged with blood. 

Figs. 10-11. Superficial layer of eschars in large intestines ; brown appearance depends upon 
agglomeration by matters of decomposed bloody globules, under aspect of brown spots, (con- 
taining sulph. iron) sometimes deep purple. Numerous crystals on surface of scars are the double 
salts of ammoniated phosphate of magnesium. Same microscopic elements seen in dysenteric 
exudations accompanying cholera. 

Figs. 13-21. Villosities of mucous membrane, covered with cylindrical epithelium, seen some- 
times in the algid (cold) period, dissolved in choleraic liquid, macerated and swollen ; and epitheli- 
al envelope detached and exfoliated. Alight touch detaches it completely; under the microscope 
looks like the down of the dandelion. The denuded villosities show sometimes a strong hyper- 
semic state, the vascular net-work is completely injected; or, in places, sometimes an amemic 
state ; the empty vessels showing across the pulp of the villositl.es, covered again in some places 
by nuclei of detached epithelium — the black fly spot and globules of blood decomposed and com- 
ing out of the vessels on the pulp of the villosities ; and the principal coloring that of bile. Some- ■ 
times, in fine, WiG. tissue of the villosities despoiled of the epithelium, is softened, macerated ; 
their extremities are ragged, flocculent, ulcerated and mortified. The pufling up of the villosi- 
ties, the hyperiemia, and tendency of the epithelium to detach itself after the maceration in the 
choleraic emulsion are principally observed in the algid period. It seems that the cellules of the 
epithelium were themselves altered. They appeared more swollen, more gorged with liquid, and 
fuller of fatty globules, than in the normal state. 

At the same time the mucous coat of the intestines is pale and antemic, the sub-serous vascular 
net-workis incompletely injected, and even when the vascular net-work of the villosities shows 
itself to the microscope, empty in whole or iu part, the contour of these vessels remains incom- 
parably more distinct than in the normal state. One sees that the net-work was but lately filled 
■with blood, and that it had been in a hyperiemic state. 

I have often observed with the microscope, bloody globules in the vascular net-work of the vil- 
losities agglomerated, adhering strongly to the coats, having an angular form, stellated, color 
deep purple, yellow-brown or black-brown. As to the villosities deprived of epithelium, covered 



84 



EINDEEPEST. 



wliich tlie salts bore to either, except in- the case of the milk.* 
The analysis of the urinet in some cases showed the chlo- 
rides to be abundant ; in others, where inflammation (pneu- 
monic especially) was extensive, deficient; but these were 
never quantitatively determined. It is to be regretted that 
the same elaborate examination has not been essayed to 
ascertain the loss of the several saline constituents of the 
blood, and the order in which they take their departure from 
the serum as well as from the blood corpuscles in cases of 
the Pest, as has been in those of cholera. We would then 

with little points of a yellowisli or dark brown, softened and ulcerated, they have been ob- 
served principally during the typhoid period, and in the mixed kind of choleraic processes. 

Finally, in typhoid and choleraic dysenteric forms, I have often seen the mucous membrane, 
especially in the ileiim, stripped of its villosities for a considerable extent. 

The exfoliation of the cylindrical epithelium, and the denudation of the villosities, are not to be 
considered as pathological indications essential and characteristic of cholera. Ist. Because found 
in chronic diarrhoea, in typhus and dysentery, and other affections of the digestive canal. 2d. 
Not always found, in the algidperiod, at least, in such degree as to be regarded as i\i.e pnncipal 
alteration of the mucous membrane of the intestines ; and, 3d. When the exfoliation of the epi- 
thelium by the choleraic process has taken place, even to a considerable extent , this alteration 
is probably not primitive, but more a consecutive state, depending upon the dissolving and 
maceration of the villosities in the choleraic liquid. 

Fig. 22. The fatty globules on the liver are agglomerated, are of different sizes, and spread here 
and there in little clusters among the cellules of the liver, which also contain a greater number 
of the fatty globules than in the normal state. 



*Results of the Analysis of the Milk op Cows suFPEKiNa from Rinder- 
pest OBTAINED AT EVENINa MiLKING, NOVEMBER 17. 



No. of sample, 

Total quantity of milk obtained. 

Density, 

Water in 1000 parts, 

Solid matters " 

Casein, " 

Butter, " 

Sugar of milk, " 

Soluble salts, " 

Insoluble salts, " 

Day when animal became af- 
fected, 



No. 1. 



9 oz. 



lOSt.S 



903.100 

96.900 
52.0870 
27.7180 
7.7210 
5 . 9755 
3.3985 



Nov. 17 



No. 2. 



9M oz. 



1024.4 



866.166 

138.834 

51.030 

70.279 

8.463 

3.798 

5.264 



Nov. 16 



No. 3. 



5X oz. 



1030.05 



857.282 

142 718 

54.295 

63.689 

14.740 

4.166 

5 834 



Nov. 15 



No. 4. 



2>^ oz. 



813.60 

186.40 

34.921 

129.314 

12.820 

4.795 

4.550 



Nov. 16 



No. 5. 



2^ oz. 



1026.6 



875.311 
124.69 

54.880 

48.401 

12.345 

4.873 

4.191 



Nov. 16 



Average 
Cow's 
milk. 



870.20 

139.80 

44.80 

31.30 

47.70 

6.00 



+ The specific gravity of the urine rose with the charge of albumen and excess of urea, from 
1021 (urea 1.71 per cent) to 1034 (urea 5.47 per cent), in which last case, that of a cow slaughtered 
on third or fourth day of disease, which had suffered great dyspnoea during life and showed most 
marked pulmonary emphysema after death, on the addition of nitric acid to the urine, and with- 
out concentrating, a large amount of nitrate of urea separated out. (Cattle Plague, p. 78.) 



GENERAL PATHOLOGY. 85 

have the confirmation of what must remain for the present 
as a probability, that in all zymotics such an order exists ; 
and that leaving- out of view those where the process of the 
decarbonization of blood in the lung's is arrested at the 
outset, or in the earliest stages of attack, this order is in 
most of the pestilential classes of disease much the same ; 
making a fair allowance for incidental changes in the terms 
of the series by way of permutation. This order in cholera, 
as determined by the ingenious researches of Dr. Schmidt of 
Dorpat, marks the steps by which the constituents of the 
serum transude into the alimentary canal, and after such 
action has been established for a little, those of the blood 
corpuscles move into the serum. This order is as follows : 
First the water of the serum (and of the blood- corpuscles in 
turn) passes before the solids, then the inorganic . before the 
organic solids ; next the clilorides before the phosphates ; and 
last, the salts of soda before those of potash. And in giving 
this summary, it is interesting to observe that the order, as 
Dr. Aitken says, "is very much the same as takes place 
during the action of some purgative medicine, such as elate- 

Kow although it would be appropriate for those versed in 
Pathological lore, and standing in the foremost ranks of 
science, or those capable of such intricate research, to com- 
pare the gradual withdrawal from the vital circulajtion of 
these essential constituents, with the symptoms which such 
successive drains upon the fountain of life produce ; we may 
be pardoned in the attempt to draw attention to such consid- 
erations as next demanding elucidation in the advancing pro- 
gress of Pathological inquiries, if we interpose an inference. 
Dr. A. Gamgee has intimated that the disappearance of chlo- 
rides from the urine, indicates the existence of pulmonary 
trouble, not hypostasis, carnification, or serous effusion, but 
what is ijopularly, as we have noticed in our earlier pages, 
termed difficulty of breathing, &c., in short, a state bordering 
upon asphyxia, l^ow, as it is fair to presume (at least until 
science by exact methods has determined otherwise) that the 

* Science and Practice of Medicine, Vol. I, p. 606. 



86 • EINDEEPEST. 

chlorides leave the serum at a stage in the Pest correspond- 
ing to that when they move in cholera ; but whether at this 
time or at this stage in the process the bases of soda and 
13otash go also or remain a little longer in the circulation, 
so that a disengagement of chlorine takes place in the blood, 
and is carried to the luugs in greater or less quantities, 
producing the partial asphyxia in the Pest commonly as 
before (p. 67) ascribed to uervous irritation, or that more 
general suspension of the aerating action of the lungs occur- 
ring in the algid state of cholera ; it may not be wholly 
pertinent or appropriate in us to inquire. We may venture 
at least upon such themes when we come to the therapeutical 
part of our labor. 

Stopping only to draw the attention of the scientific 
reader to the similarity in form, of the crystals produced 
by the. changes in the saline constituents of the blood, 
effecting in their singular escapade from the vascular system, 
new combinations on the surface of the tissues ; we ask the ex- 
pert in such microscopic crystallography, to say whether the 
cubical crystals Gamgee observed* are the same as those seent 
by Perigoff ; and then we would invite the attention of the 
Chemico-Physiologist to their true substance and composition : 
and if truly ammoniated phosphate of magnesium, to explain 
by what process, and in which of the series of saline degen- 
eration as just stated, they are formed. 

But let us bring this extended pathological summary to 
a close ; and claim, without any further attempt to sub- 
stantiate the thesis ; that it is necessary, in order to em- 
brace the various cases set forth in our earlier tracings 
of symptoms and morbid anatomy, and to bring unity out of 
their apparent diversity, to propound the following classifica- 
tion for the main varieties or stages of the Pest. 

1. The Congestive or Catarrhal Stage, presenting the dis- 
ease in its simple and uncomplicated forms, where the lesions 
do not extend deeper than the epithelial coat of the mucous 
membrane wherever affected. 

* Page 62, PI. X, figs. 3, 5 and 6. t Page S3, note on figs. 10 and 11. 



TREATMENT. 87 

2. The JEmidsive or HyperfEinic Stage in which the mucous 
membrane is softened (more so in all probability by its own 
ejections lying in the concave folds of the intestine, &c.) ; 
pours forth mucin in thin form, and is sometimes in parts 
completely degenerated, losing its hold on the muscular coat. 
(See p. 34, &c.) 

3. The Exudative Stage, where the separation of lymph 
proceeds, and croupous casts or diphtheritic deposits are 
formed or poured out (like polypus). (See pp. 30, 31, 37, 
&c., and plates VI, figs. 1 and 2, VIII, figs. 3 and 4.) 

4. The Suiypurative Stage, when the follicular growth takes 
on a pyoid form, and granulations are attended with purulent 
destruction. (See pp. 34-37.) 

It is only necessary to add that it is highly probable, giv- 
ing due weight and place to the evidence adduced by different 
observers, in various climes, and in successive outbreaks, 
touching the inoculative as well as natural forms of the Pest, 
that the largest number of cases would be found occurring and 
terminating either favorably or fatally in the first stage ; and 
that the residue would be ratably proportioned among the 
other stages, in a ratio, declining with the advanced complica- 
tions which they respectively portray. 

III. Treatment. 

The treatment of a distemper so insidious in its attack, 
subtle and masked in its incubative stage, and if left uncheck- 
ed, so fearfully fatal in its development, demands a method 
that shall be prompt and .resolute, and based upon the 
calmest conclusions of science. All empirical modes should 
meet with a sturdy rejection. Blood-letting, and the vulgar 
nostrums of farriery, should be discarded. The veterinary 
who has not thoroughly grasped by careful study the scope 
and action of this zymotic, should be denied a consultation 
or a fee. It would be better to trust to nursing and to nature 
than to him. For his professional blunders might, by the 
myriads of germs of pestilence created and diffused under 
his unskilful eye, add to the dumb creature his bungling 



88 EINDEEPEST. 

destroys, holocausts of sacrifices to his qnackeiy. It would 
be otherwise with the instructed and intelligent expert. 

Veterinary science is now invoking to its aid the most erai- 
nent pathologists and therapeutists of the age, in order to 
secure the mastery of this disease. And this should not only 
be a cause of gratulation to all agriculturists of whatever 
nation or clime, and a source of hope for the future ; but it 
should inspire all further investigation, and the handling of 
everj^ case, wherever and whenever it may occur, with the 
same feeling. We do not hesitate then to say, terrible as 
the pictures of such desolations as have been wrought in 
Great Britain may be, that the treatment of this pestilence 
in any new country it may visit, should, from its first onset, 
be courageous and hopeful. The arm of science thus nerved 
strikes always for victory. And with the facts fresh in our 
recollection that the Eczema which broke out in England in 
1839, and the typhoid or exudative pneumonia which followed 
in 1841, have lost all their terrors, and can only be found in 
a few sporadic cases in enzootic form ; we rejoice that the 
Edinburgh Committee, through Dr. Wood, their chairman, 
have proclaimed their faith that this epizootic is to become 
milder in its type, and that its fatal ravages will be notably 
diminished. 

Should this disease ever hold an extended reign in this 
country, not the knife but scientific treatment will check and 
overturn its empire. If the farming population, and those to 
whom cattle are a necessity, not only for milk, but for the 
purposes of labor and breeding, can be duly advised of the 
latter method, they will not be compelled to resort too un- 
frequently to the former. But it is not meant by this that 
science is indifferent to those wise measures of jjrecaution 
embodied in salutary enactments by the legislative authority. 
Isolation and quarantine are an essential i^art of scientific 
treatment, and unless these can be secured, and, with other 
approved remedial agencies, applied skillfully and oppor- 
tunely as to time ; destruction and instant burial with the 
use of disinfectants are the only alternatives left to incaution 
and ignorance. 



TEEATMENT. 89 

As science cannot accept tlie rude instruments witli which 
fear always urges ignorance to arm itself, so the common 
sense of j^ractical men soon revolts from their long continued 
employment. 

The proprietors and tenant farmers of Kincardineshire, by 
memorial addressed in February, 1866, to the Privy Council, 
stated that until a then recent period, they were of opinion 
with a great majority of her Majesty's subjects — 

" That stamping out by slaughtering all diseased animals, and those 
in immediate contact with them, was the only remedy ; but that within 
the last few weeks a great change had taken place in your memorial- 
ists' opinions regarding this matter, in consequence of the successful 
treatment of the Plague in the parishes with which your memorialists 
are connected .... &c." 

After stating that on certain farms eighty cattle had been 
cured and only one died, and their belief that by pursuing 
such treatment, ninety per cent at least might be safely 
brought through the dreadful Plague; they besought the 
Honorable Council to act under a proviso for such purpose, 
expressed in the Cattle Plague Act of 29 Vict., Chap. 2, and 
to exempt from its operation (i. e., the slaughter of infected 
animals) for a period of two tveeJcs, all cattle coming under 
the immediate care of the Inspector whose treatment of the 
disease had been so successful ; to the end that if the experi- 
mental trial thus to be sanctioned should have a successful 
result, a like measure of relief might be extended to other 
districts. Strange to say, the Council refused to give a 
beneficent and liberal interpretation to the clause referred to, 
fell back upon the alleged original understanding of its pur- 
port by both Houses of Parliament ; confined its interpreta- 
tion to experimental cases under the direct charge of the 
Cattle Plague Commissioners, and refused the prayer of the 
memorialists. We pause a moment to remind the reader 
that more benign and less ambiguous provisions mark the 
enactments of law adopted by the State of E^ew York on the 
recommendation of its Agricultural Society. 

The " stamping out " process it is conceded, may effect the 
end it proposes within certain limits, provided these are sufii- 
12 



90 RINDERPEST. 

cieutly extended to comprelieud all infected cases. But if 
tlie quarantine prove to be an imaginary one, or if tlie pesti- 
lence lias broken out tbrougli atmospberic agencies and bas 
extended itself beyond tbe limits of frontier or local cordons, 
tben wben tbe maladroitness of fancied security bas been 
foiled, and all tbe allied antagonists to scientific metbods 
are prostrated, tbis dnttum fuhnen recoils upon its abettors ; 
and tbe appeal tbat tben comes to tbe skill tbey despised 
loses tbe full measure of benefit to bave been secured at tbe 
outset, bad better, not baser agencies been employed. 

Tbese are tbe plain practical lessons wbicb tbe bistories of 
all epidemics in tbe buman family, and of all plagues among 
the brute races, clearly and invariably teacb. Tbey mark tbe 
bold uprising and clamor of empiricism, and in its successive 
overthrows by tbe strides of pestilence tbey jioint to tbe 
modest but masterly persuasions and trials of science for true 
and enduring relief. And if we seem to dwell upon sucb 
teachings, it is because we are conscious that as " the still 
small voice " followed the tempest, tbe earthquake and the 
fire, and the preparations for it was not until these fearful 
manifestations bad awed the querulous, and doubting prophet ; 
so it always is in the face of mortal pestilences tbat tbe 
bowlings of terror, tbe onslaught of savage phrenzy and the 
fierce desolations of misguided zeal, precede the calm and 
benign intuitions of mercy and judgment, which make up 
what we call science, and give to it the radiance of a divine 
vision. 

Happy are those who are saved from the period of agita- 
tion, tumult and dismay, to witness the return of serene and 
successful counsels and procedures. Most fortunate is tbe 
people who, anticipating tbis as the natural order of events 
wherever prejudice and passion hold their course, use all 
their energy and wisdom to cut short or forestal their sway, 
and hasten to usher in the reign of order and method. 

As above intimated, we bave to propose, before we con- 
clude this branch of our subject, a method of treatment to be 
approved by the Society, and as we hope, also by minds 
versed in or attracted by scientific investigations. But before 



TEEATMBNT. 



91 



we proceed to so responsible a venture, we will pass in review 
the various methods pursued by the different schools in medi- 
cine, and by distinguished veterinarians and practitioners of 
the medical Art ; and to avoid repetition, such as contribute 
to the scheme we may propose will not be particularly dwelt 
upon in this general review. 

The different schools have been fertile in their inventions 
and modifications of the treatment pursued, whether prophy- 
lactic, hygienic or curative. Of these, the Allopathic, as the 
older and with a larger discipleship, is first in the order of 
our sketch, and of this school in Great Britain, Smart and 
Gamgee may be ranked as the leading authorities. In con- 
nection with the former, the Edinburgh Committee, made up 
of highly distinguished physicians and veterinarians, &c., 
deserve marked attention. 

Dr. Smart, who claims to have had considerable success in 
the treatment of the Pest, a summary of which we quote from 
his Eeport to the Lord Provost and magistrates of the city of 
Edinburgh, in extenso ; has, after insisting upon careful and 
assiduous nursing, proposed three kinds of drugs as all he 
found requisite to employ, to wit : *Laxative, with diu- 
retic action — f Stimulant (also possessing diuretic and diapho- 
retic properties) ; and as Tonic, one and a half ounces of 
powdered cinchona bark of the best quality, to be used 
when convalescence is fully established. This last is given 
in the early period of convalescence in combination with the 
stimulant, and at a later period with a quart of good sweet 
ale, given once daily and at night. He recommends, also, 
that two table-spoonfuls of laudanum be added to any of the 
mixtures prescribed or combined with its food, to control 
excessive diarrhoea, or obviate straining. 

His plan of diet requires the use of simple food, and until 
decided convalescence, well cooked, and given in small por- 
tions at regular hours. The full diet, (devised, according to 



* Laxative. 

Nitrate of Potaeh, ) , j^ ^ 

Powdered Ginger, ) 

Powder of sublimed Sulphur, 2 ounces. 

Treacle, 1 pound. 

Water to make a quart, and well mixed. 



+ Stimulant. 

Carbonate of Ammonia, X of an ounce. ■ 
Sweet Bpirits of nitre, ( ^f each IK ounces. 
Spirit of MmdereruB, j- "* ^<*^" ^-/s " 
Cold water, 9 ounces. 
Mix. 



92 EINDERPEST. 

Gauigee, by one of the best managers of cows he ever knew, 
who was in attendance at Smart's experimental byres) is 
composed of^ — 

" Four handsful each of branand brewer's draiF; one pound of pease- 
meal ; two pounds of mashed turnip (well boiled), not too thick, and 
given night and morning. At mid-day a gruel is given, of two pounds 
of oatmeal, well boiled in six quarts of water. In addition to these, 
some raw turnips (two pounds, for example, of greentojjs), and one 
pound of hay, may be allowed in small quantities during the twenty- 
four hours. To allay thirst, three to four quarts of water, pre- 
viously boiled and allowed to cool, are given in mouthfuls during the 
day.* This constitutes the full diet of a decided convalescent. Half 
of this diet is, in most instances, during the acute course of the dis- 
ease, too much. In all cases the same kind of food and periods of 
giving it are followed. There are some animals that for a time refuse 
all food, not excepting gruel. In such cases the gruel is administered 
by the bottle thrice daily, along with or after the medicine. The 
animal should get a little mash so soon as it takes it voluntarily. It is 
often expedient to miss a meal, esj)ecially whenever symptoms of an 
unfavorable indication appear. These are not of unfrequent occurrence 
during the course of treatment. Grass is given, and the quantity of 
hay and turnip increased as there is progress toward more ]3erfect 
recovery." 

His summary of treatment is as follows : 

1. The animal is at once taken from its ordinary food and separa- 
ted from the rest. 

2. It is to be placed in a well-aired byre or house free from draughts, 
and the temperature of which is maintained at 70° Fahr. or 75° Fahr. 

3. It is to be well rubbed down, and thoroughly cleaned and cov- 
ered with a good rug. 

4. If there be constipation, begin with the laxative and continue 
night and morning, or if required, oftener, until there is free scouring. 

5. Let there be no delay in giving the stimulant, and, if needful, 
combine it with the laxative. 

6. Defer giving ale and bark until convalescence appears. 

7. To obviate straining or excessive purging, two tablespoonfuls 
of laudanum, night and morning, may be added to other medicine. 

* Many of the diseased animals evince a remarkable predilection for charred wood ; and as car- 
bon is an excellent antiseptic, it is only obeying a natural indication to supply materials to satisfy 
this craving. To do so, charred wood may be boiled with the water, and a few small charred 
branches of trees placed in the stall. 



TEEATMENT. 93 

8. Be careful to avoid overfeeding, as an error in diet may prove 
fatal. 

9. See that the cow is well milked night and morning (even when 
there is no yield), during the course of the disease. 

10. All the droj)pings should be at once disinfected by solution of 
chloride of lime, and quickly removed. 

11. The affected animals should be frequently and closely observed, 
and threatening indications treated as they occur. 

We give also in a note,* several examples of successful 
treatment, wMcli may serve as a guide as well as encourage- 
ment to the uninitiated. 



* First case. — A cow from an infected byre in the Canongate, admitted on the 21s< Septemler ; 
was very weak, and expected to die the same night ; the breathing was labored and sighing, and 
the animal was cold all over. Had taken no food for five days previously ; the milk and cudding 
quite absent during that period ; put under treatment next day, when it was thoroughly rubbed 
down and covered with double rugs. As there was already scouring, it was ordered stimulants 
three times a day, and to be fed entirely on gruel. It got worse apparently for two days ; scour- 
ing became excessive, and mixed with blood. On the %ath the cow was so well as to be allowed a 
little mash. The temperature was good, scouring less, and there was abundance of healthy urine. 
0)1 26<A and 21lth there was no apparent progress ; the breathing was very oppressed ; pulse 100 
per minute ; not strength to rise ; breathless and exhausted after every efibrt. On the 2Sth it was 
decidedly better ; warmer, more animated, looked eagerly for the gruel; urine abundant; the 
dung more natural. Bottle of ale and stimulant mixture twice daily. On the 2Wh the cow eat 
too freely of hay ; relapse of t wen tj'-four hours, accompanied by much diarrhoea and straining; 
corrected by a tablespoonful of laudanum night and morning. During the next few daj's some 
progress toward recovery was made. Had stimulant twice and sometimes thrice a day, and in 
the evening ale with tonic powder. On the ith October the pulse was 72, and getting stronger, 
and the respirations were 36 per minute ; food consisted chiefly of gruel. Convalescence now 
appeared, and became decided. The cow was more lively— no scouring. Temperature good ; the 
hide over the back and on both sides of the neck was puflTed up with air under it (general emphy- 
sema of the cellular tissue); when struck emitted a drummy sound. On the 5th, unequivocal sign 
of advanced convalescence evinced — cudding. Two small mashes with a little turnip and grass, 
the stimulant mixture twice, and at evening the bark in warm ale and gruel, constitute the daily 
food and medicine of the animal. Milk returning; pulse and breathing natural; the cow quite 
recovered. Pufflness of the skin every day getting less. 

Second Cccse. — A cow from an infected byre ; put under treatment on the 2Sth Sejttember ; had 
taken no food, nor been seen cudding for two days previously ; pulse, 96 ; constipation, and loaded 
paunch; vagina shewed the characteristic color ; treated with laxative mixture night and morn- 
ing. On the 1st October the pulse 96, weak ; respiration 72 and oppressed. Free scouring, lasts 
all next day ; moderated by a tablespoonful of laudanum night and morning, along with the stimu- 
lant. On tJie Zd, signs of convalescence ; takes a little mash night and morning, but mostly gruel ; 
scouring abated. On </i« 4</t, convalescence more marked; pulse, breathing and temperature 
more natural ; milk returning. October 7, all signs of retiirning health now present ; takes small 
mash night and morning, with a little turnip, hay and grass. The milk is returning rapidly ; 
breathing tranqiiil. 

Third Case.— Cow from an infected byre. Admitted on the 29th Sei^tember ; all the marks of 
disease present; pulse 100, and weak; breathing oppressed; no appetite; very depressed and 
thirsty; reddened vagina and gums — constipation. Had laxative mixture, and freely scoured by 
a single bottle. To have stimulant mixture three times a day ; remains in an undecided state 
during the next three days, refusing food except gruel and a little thin mash. October 3, the pulse 
60, and respiration 48. The cow is more lively ; eats a little better ; same treatment ; to have a 
tonic powder and ale at night. October 0, pulse still high— 80 ; the respiration 48 ; the breathing 



94 EINDEEPEST. 

The Edinburgh Committee, in their Interim Eeport, made 
up in a week after their appointment, " deprecate and strongly 
protest against the system of indiscriminate slaughter," &c., 
and regarding Einderpest as evidently a disease of a low 
type, and the tendency to death to be by exhaustion, con- 
clude that violent and lowering treatment is wholly inadmis- 
sible, &c. So also with strong saline and gastric purgatives, 
in the place of which Professor Dick, one of the committee, 
takes linseed oil in doses of sixteen ounces, to which is added 
half a mutchin {Ang : pint) of ivliisky. For the relief of 
scouring, he recommends the use of lime water in quart 
doses, to which laudanum, from one-half ounce to an ounce, 
is to be added. These remedies were to be followed by a 
stimulant treatment, (or it might be simultaneously adminis- 
tered), to wit, carbonate of ammonia in six drachm doses, 
three times a day. The tonics promotive of convalescence 
are, sulphate of iron in half ounce doses, twice a day, or the 
powdered harlz recommended by Dr. Smart. 

In a subsequent paper, the committee classify their treat- 
ment under four heads : 

a. Diaphoretic and Stimulant. 
h. Acid Treatment. 

c. Restorative Treatment without drugs. 

d. Prophylactic Treatment. 

Under the first, a vapor Mth is administered once or twice 
a day, and for successive days, according to circumstances ; 
the animal being placed in a box or stall whose sides are an 

oppressed ; otherwise, not markedly changed. October 9, signs of convalescence quite decided ; 
appetite restored, takes full meal of a convalescent quite greedily. The milk increased in quan- 
tity ; improving in quality ; pulse and breathing still a little too high. This arises from a 
slight attack of pleurisy, caught since admission to the byre. 

Fourth Case.— From an infected byre. Admitted 26th September ; taken no food for two days ; 
dull ; losing milk ; oppressed in breathing ; pulse 100 ; signs present, reddened vagina and 
gums. Laxative mixture given ; free scouring next day ; stimulant treatment ; small mashes 
twice a day ; gruel at mid-day. On the Ist October, the pulse was 96 ; respirations 48 ; tempera- 
ture natural ; animal dull ; no appetite. On the 2d, improvement ; stimulant twice a day, and ale 
and bark at night. On the QtJi, convalescent ; milk increased in quantity, improving in quality ; 
gets full diet; takes it eagerly. 

Fifth Case.— Cow from an infected byre, where ten had previously died. Admitted 1st Octobtr. 
Had all distinctive marks ; treated on similar principles. For three days, pulse 95, and respiration 
103 ; nothing specially to be noted in treatment. After seven days illness, convalescent, giving 
full milk, chewing cud and taking full diet. 



TEEATMENT. 95 

incli or so higher than the patient, covered with a tarpaulin 
thrown over the box so as to tightly enclose the animal except 
his head, and the hot vapor being kept up by throwing red- 
hot bricks into a tub of hot water, first placed in the box 
below the level of the floor, and so as to be easily accessible 
to the operator. 

The avowed object of this bath is " to promote the circulation at 
the surface, to relieve the congestion of the mucous membranes, and 
to eliminate the poison from the system." 

To aid which desired results, and as not incompatible, 
stimulants are given : 

1. Oil of turpentine^ four table spoonfuls in a chopin-bottle full of 
gruel, well shaken, and given twice a day — increasing the perspi- 
ratory effort, and suj)erceding the use of a laxative. 

2. Infusion of coffee, obtained by digesting two ounces of coffee 
roasted and ground, in a bottlefull of boiling water, for fifteen 
minutes, and when sufficiently cool given every six hours. 

3. Carbonate of ammonia, administered three times a day in half- 
ounce doses, in a bottlefull of gruel, to which may be added three 
drachms of nitre. 

Tlie Acid Treatment is suggested in consequence of the alka- 
line state of the secretions, and consists of : 

1. Dilute muriatic acid, three drachms, twice a day, in a bottlefull 
of gruel. 

2. Yinegar, also in the gruel, two ounces, given four times a day. 

The Restorative Treatment demands full accord with 

1. The general sanitary instructions of the commission as to clean- 
liness, use of disinfectants, regulating tlie temperature of the byre 
so as to keep it up to 65° Fahr,, or 60° Fahr. at least; the banish- 
ment of hay, straw and all kinds of fodder from the stall, as well as 
manger, &c. 

2. The regulation of the diet, so as only to give oat meal or barley 
meal gruel, or linseed, hay and bran teas, to which, in the earlier 
Stages of convalescence, well boiled turnips or carrots may be added ; 
not even a handfull of hay being permitted until rumination is re-estab- 
lished, and that first dampened with water which has been salted. 

3. The keeping of the anitnal warm, by rugs or other appliances. 

4. The use of good, sioeet ale, at the rate of two choj)in bottles 
three or four times a day. 



96 EINDEEPEST. 

The Projphylactic Treatment, recommended with a view of 
preventing the development of the disease, or of modifying 
the intensity of its symptoms, &c., consists of: 

1. Sulphite of soda, one ounce in a bucketfull of water, and given 
morning and evening, 

2. McDougalVs solution, a wine glass in a "bucketfull of water, 
twice a day. 

3. The sulphite and solution combined, to wit, a half ounce of the 
first, and two tablespoonfuls of the second, given as above. 

Gamgee, while challenging for his practice as many recov- 
eries as are gained by his opponents, aflQrms that — 

" No known remedy restores an animal once severely attacked, and 
the administration of medicine is, as a rule, not required to save the 
small percentage which may recover." 

Winding ujj his hopelessness as follows : 

" But if any one wishes to test the eifects of medicine in this disease, 
let him treat at least one hundred animals on any one system, and 
leave another one hundred to nature, having a proper regard for their 
comfoi't and judicious hygienic management." 

He proceeds to account partially for the laurels won by the 
Homoeopaths in South Holland, by noting as one of the 
strange variances of outbreak in Great Britain, that — 

"Dutch cattle have sufiered less than our own, both in Holland 
and Great Biitain." 

In the absence of definite information, we are left to con- 
jecture whether his methods were as numerous as those of the 
empirics to whose treatment he professes to have given close 
observation, or as those of the remedies employed and of which 
he gives an extended notice, though prefaced by the slur — 
" Some animals recover despite the mode of treatment." 
Alluding to the recent method of siibcutaneous injection — 

" As of tincture of aconite, belladonna, and other alkaloids which 
do not irritate and inflame the tissues" — 

he next describes the system of injection into veins, in the 
use of — 

"A pint or quart of water at 100° Fahr,, injected after the like 
amount of blood has been taken from the jugular vein . . . ., to be 



TREATMENT. 97 

tried in the early stage of the disease and .... with result of pur- 
gation, action on the kidneys and free exhalation from the skin" — 

and passes to the class of External applications, inclusive of 
the ordinary methods — 

" Of applying heat, cold, rubefacients and blisters to the surface of 
the skin." 

Those less known and partially commended (while actual 
cautery is very wisely discarded as barbarous), are — 

1. The vapour bath. — Covering the animal (head excepted) with 
woolen rugs, propped up and out by sticks, &c., and then heating the 
air between the rugs and the skin by a spirit or gas lamp .... 

2. Mustard poultices. — Which should be large, warm, and applied 
with a rug to the body, so as to be kej)t on for three or four hours .... 

3. Hugs dipped in boiling xoater — wrung out thoroughly and applied 
to the abdomen. 

Elsewhere, mention is made of the liot air and vapour Mtlis 
which have been used with some success in Russia, and were 
thought to be of suflflcient importance to form the basis of 
a dispatch from Sir A. Buchanan, the ambassador at St. 
Petersburgh, to Earl Eussell, in October, 18G5. 

The vapour bath, originated by Thaer, who applied it with suc- 
cess in the murrain of 1828, is taken over a kettle with a plank cover 
perforated with holes, sunk into the ground and so built up that 
fire may be kindled under it, and when steam or hot vapour is 
evolved, the sick animal covered with a woolen cloth next to the skin 
and a linen one outside, is kept over it from thirty minutes to an 
hour ; then rubbed dry and kept perfectly warm ; allowed gruel, &c. 

Many recoveries were detailed by the Eussian farmer who 
communicated its use. Like results also followed the prac- 
tice used and commended by Mr. Graham, of Oapellie, near 
Glasgow, in his hydropathic application of cold water : 

" The diseased animals were packed in three heavy horse rugs, satu- 
rated with water, about which were closely applied three other rugs ; 
and received an internal remedy* during the packing period. 

* Three tablespoonfuls of sulphur. 1 Half a tablespoonful of ginger. 
do do nitre. | One pound of treacle. 

In warm water. 

13 



98 EENDEEPEST. 

The Internal Remedies, as classified by Gamgee, are as 
follows : 

1. Purgatives, which in drastic cathartic doses he properly con- 
demns, as mild laxatives he tolerates, though he had as much success 
in cases where he made no attempt to relax the bowels as where either 
mild or active purgatives had been prescribed, giving a prescription* 
not apt to induce much purgation, and to be followed by a bottle of 
linseed oil. 

2. Enemata; too much overlooked as medicinal agencies and as 
means of nntrition. They may be given first to move the bowels by 
dislodging contents of larger bowels ; second, to restrain them, in the 
nse of a pint of starch emulsion, containing one ounce of laudanum, 

3. Diuretics, of Avhich nitre has been principally used, but " it is 
apt to weaken, and must be prescribed in moderation, and it has no 
specific action of value." Oil of turpentine is diuretic, as well as 
stimulant. 

4. Diaphoretics, in the nse of warm clothing, heated air, &c. (as 
before referred to), adding the internal use of liquor ammonim acetatis, 
to those before mentioned. 

5. Stimulants. — WJiisky, brandy, spirits of wifie, in two onnce 
doses, every two or three hours, have been frequently administered ; 
" some animals have recovered, whilst others have died." 

Carbonate of ammonia, in half-ounce doses, has been largely 
employed, and " seems to agree as well as anything with the sick ani- 
mals." Strong cde, porter, port wine, tfcc, should be used in the stage 
of convalescence. 

6. Sedatives, not resorted to in any great extent. Tincture of aconite 
in 30 drop doses, has been administered at frequent intervals. Extract 
of belladonna, and opium have been principally chosen from the nar- 
cotic list, as affording the best chance of regulating the condition of 
the bowels. 

7. Neutral Salts. — The nitrates and chlorates of potash and acetate 
of ammonia produce fiivorable effects npon the blood in febrile dis- 
orders, and activate the secretion of the skin, kidneys, and mucous 
membranes generally. They may be administered singly (or com- 
bined with carbonate of ammonia) in moderate and repeated doses, 
and dissolved in a considerable quantity of water. 

8. Tonics, vegetable and mineral, may be used with benefit in the 
convalescent stage, if not given in doses so large as to induce derange- 

* Sulphate of magnesia, 12 oz., I Spirits of nitric ether, 1 oz., 

Sulphur, 4 oz., | Nitre, )4 oz. 

Water, 1 quart. 



TREATMENT. 99 

ment of the stomach and bowels. The decoction of cinchona or 
Peruvian hark^ and the infusion of gentian may be given about an 
hour before feeding, &c. Sulphate of iron is the best tonic, and 
should be given in the food in di-achm doses. 

9. Antiseptics. — Condfs fluid — the red solution of the jDerman- 
ganate of potash — in water alone, or water slightly acidulated with 
sidphuric acid; two ounces of the fluid every two hours diminished 
the foetor of the excrement. Small doses of carbolic acid^ sesqui- 
chloride of iron, or of chlorine water, pi'oduce similar effects. 

10. Mineral acids. — Hydrochloric (formerly known as muriatic) 
acid, and sulphuric acid, more frequently have been vaunted as spe- 
cifics. J^itro -muriatic acid is serviceable in the convalescent stage. 

Mr. Priestman (whom we may remember as the veterinary 
surgeon first consulted by Mrs. Nichols) has suggested a mode 
of treatment which, according to the statement made by Dr. 
Hayes, and found in Sequel to First Eeport, page 13, has 
proved most successful. 

The same hygienic conditions and mode of diet as commended by 
Smart are f»reserved ; half-ounce doses of carbonate of ammonia and 
nitre are given night and morning in cold water, as a j^roj^hylactic, and 
when symptoms of the Pest appear, two ounces of chloric ether are given 
in gruel three times daily, and when they abate, two ounces of a mixture 
consisting of equal parts of tincture of gentian, tincture of ginger, 
and aromatic spirit of ammonia are given night and morning. 

A clialyheate remedy for the Pest, based upon a large 
experience in Poland, was brought to the knowledge of the 
Eoyal Commissioners through a dispatch from Major Mans- 
field, the Oonsul-General at Warsaw, to the British Secretary 
for Foreign Affairs. 

On a Polish farm there existed a chalybeate spring, and 
th(B cattle drinking of it 

" were either but slightly affected or recovered after drinking pro- 
fusely of it, while on the adjoining farms the beasts died in large 
numbers. It was then found that by putting old iron into the cattle 
troughs, so as to produce a highly chalybeate water, the same result 
ensued, and the cattle recovei'ed." 

Hence, doubtless, has followed the suggestion of pour- 
ing into the drinking trough for cattle a little suliylmr and 



100 EINDEEPEST. 

a drachm of sulphate of iron and a half pound of salt every 
day, for each large beast. 

Dr. Druitt recommends the tincture of the Sesquichloride 
of iron, the Trisnitrate of Bismuth as a deodorizer of the ali- 
mentary canal, and yeast in large quantities in addition to 
those we have previously noticed. Fourteen out of twenty 
Dutch bullocks were cured by Mr. J. Hutton through the 
agency of ammonia and tonics. 

" Stimulants were administered as required. All the water used 
for drinking was medicated with mineral acids, and the beasts fre- 
quently washed with water impregnated with ammonia." 

Prescriptions have been confidently recommended by vete- 
rinary chemists and doctors of medicine, of which we may 
quote two specimens : 

Chlorate and nitrate of potash, of each one ounce; Hydrochloric 
(muriatic) ac^■<:? and powdered opium, each one drachm; to be mixed 
in a pint and a half of a decoction of linseed. 

Chlorate potash, common salt and nitre, each one ounce, to be dis- 
solved in a pint of hot water, in which an ounce of dilute hydrochloric 
acid has been mixed ; the dose to be administered in gruel, &c. 

Mr. Moffat's prescription consisted of: 

Chlorate of potash, three drachms, tartar emetic five grains, and 
carbonate of iron, fifteen grains. 

Those of Mr. Crotch, M. A., Dr. Carr and Mr. Wilson 
severally commending, 

the injection into the venous system of antiseptic and parasiti- 
cide salts, of which the hyposulphite of soda, the permanganate of 
potash and the perchlorate of soda are specified — the frequent wash- 
ing of eyes, face, &c., with vinegar, and the internal administering of 
a pint or more daily — a pint of fresh yeast, added to a like quantity 
of beer, — put in two quarts of gruel, and given three times a day ; — 

electricity, the electro- voltaic pile, cod liver oil balls; 

bleeding to fainting, and giving a bottle of brandy to revive ; 
calomel and fumigation with mercurial vapor ; prescriptions 
having cayenne pepper for their bases,* complete the list of 
allopathic nostrums, after we have given that of Mr. Heatley, 
of Market Drayton, as follows : 

* Gamgee'8 Cattle Plague {et ubi sup.), p. 104-116. 



TEEATMENT. 101 

Take of spirits of turpentine one ounce, and of castor oil seven 
ounces, to be given only once as the first dose ; take sesquicarhonate 
of ammonia 2indi powdered Peruvian hark, each one di'achm, powdered 
ginger thirty grains, and peppennint water six ounces, to be taken 
three times a day. Boil one ounce of mutt07i suet in a half pint of 
new milk, sti-ain and give every night ; and give four ounces of 
brandy in a half pint of linseed tea every morning. Each of the 
above doses to be increased or decreased according to circumstances. 

The limits of this Eeport will not permit an extended 
review of these various prescriptions; and it is doubtful 
whether it would be possible to assign any satisfactory reason 
for the successful action of many of them, if such could be 
truly predicated. 

It would \^ unwise for instance to rely upon a remedy as 
a mere de-odorizer of the alimentary canal, inasmuch as such 
an agent would be unnecessary if convalescence were once 
established, and useless, if it did not exert a decided influence 
in mitigating the fury of the disease. It is also to be observed 
on the most cursory examination of the list of therapeutic 
formulas we have given, that many neutral salts, such as the 
chlorates and nitrates of potash, &c., and others of which 
sodium is the base, enter as chief ingredients ; their combina- 
tion with acids, stimulants, sudorifics or narcotics, promis- 
ing to their authors some remote chance of relief. We are 
far from asserting that these salts could not be supplied ^ 
certain stages of the Pest with decided benefit ; but we point 
to these recipes more as exhibiting the sheerest empiricism, 
at least in the motley admixtures proposed by each enthusi- 
ast, and according to his fanciful conceit of their essential 
value. It is in this and not in any invidious sense, that we 
have as we think, very fairly designated them as nostrums. 

Further on we will notice such of the remedies cited as from 
other analogies may claim to have specific virtue in arrest- 
ing the peculiar ferment of the Pest ; but now let us pass 
to the consideration of those which if given in a state of 
health in large and repeated doses, would tend to the devel- 
opment of a morbid action, very similar to that we are con- 
sidering. This we need hardly remind the intelligent reader, 
brings us to the consideration of the homoeopathicity of cer- 



102 EIKDEEPEST. 

tain drugs, as curative in this distemper; and to the second 
branch of this review, that of the treatment pursued by the 
school, whose fundamental axiom is " similia similihiis curan- 
tury 

The Homoeopathic school has not been without ardent 
advocates, lay as well as professional, for its superior effi- 
ciency in the handling of the Pest. Its doctrines and method 
of cure, though hotly contested and decried when first 
announced, as bald quackery, have by undeniable success in 
a vast number of cures in the human subject, gained for it 
high commendation among the common people, and by 
gradual advances have extorted from opposing schools this 
high commendation, — that they have moderated the heroic 
treatment formerly in vogue. The " infinitesimal doses," 
derided as addressed only to the imagination, or only suited 
to ailments where " bread pills " would have been equally 
available, were gladly tried by Eussian serfdom, during the 
terrible scourge of cholera which visited Eastern Europe in 
1830 ; and we may add, approved by and through them, as 
the reports made to Admiral Mordinow, and since published 
by him, of large percentages of cure, sufficiently attest. The 
superior efficacy of the Homoeopathic treatment of cholera to 
that relied upon by its opponents, was further demonstrated 
in the public contest instituted under the auspices of the 
Austrian Cabinet at Vienna. And since that day its marked 
success with many people in different climes, and in all the 
varieties of disease " which flesh is heir to," has given the 
system a popular acceptation, against which it is in vain for 
prejudice or self-interest to contend. Its doctrines have 
withal been accepted by experts whose scientific attainments 
and high probity place them above the suspicion of sciolism 
and imposture. And while deprecating the absurdities to 
which many have practically carried its teachings, it is yet 
to be urged in the behalf of pure science, which holds all 
medical systems as at present in a tentative posture, that no 
hindrance should be interposed by the dogmatists of any 
school to the establishment and acceptance of fiicts of cure 
in any disease by any method ; to the end that these may 



TKEATMENT. 103 

undergo the rigorous scrutiny which the inductive method 
demands, and by which alone medical as well as other physi- 
cal sciences are to be permanently advanced. And this 
claim we may the more freely advocate, and with the high 
certainty that such advocacy will be sustained and shared in 
by all generous spirits who seek to pursue humane ends by 
scientific means ; as the sequel will show, that we propose no 
blind adhesion to any system, and as the transition period, in 
which all present systems of medicine now stand, indicates a 
new and a higher eclecticism based upon a more perfect 
classification of disease, and a more thorough demonstration 
of the agencies which aff'ord the most prompt and certain, if 
not specific relief. 

Attention was first attracted in Great Britain to the suc- 
cessful cure of the Einderpest by Homa3opathic remedies, 
through the Eeport made on the Cattle Plague in Belgium, 
by M. Barron, Her Majesty's Secretary of Legation at Brus- 
sels, to Lord Howard de Walden. In this Eeport, after a 
review of the recent outbreak in Belgium (not theretofore 
visited by this scourge since 1814), and which, principally 
from the vigorous system of quarantine noticed in our first 
Eeport, was comparatively light, the successful cures of 
Messrs. Seutin and Gaudy in Holland were brought to the 
notice of the English Government, with a strong recommen- 
dation that these gentlemen, one a chemist and the other an 
Ex-Professor in a Veterinary College, should be permitted to 
verify their practice in England. Despite the alleged malevo- 
lence of the Dutch Yeterinary Corps, the carelessness of the 
farmers whose cattle were under treatment, and the absence 
of proper assistance, a large per centage (from 70 to 80) of cures 
was gained ; the results of the practice being officially cer- 
tified in one commune, that of Mathenesse, as of forty-six 
cures in sixty-three cases. The proposition of these experts 
being based on an indemnity moderate in amount, to cover 
expenses and remuneration, was not accepted by the British 
Government, and no opi^ortunity was afforded for a direct 
inspection and test of the practice. But as appears from an 
address of Lord Bury, Treasurer of the Household, «&c., before 



104 EINDEEPEST. 

the General Committee of tlie Norfolk Cattle Plague Insure 
ance Association, the friends of Homoeopathy, requested Dr. 
Hamilton to go to Holland to investigate and report upon 
the treatment pursued by both schools. The Doctor was fur- 
nished with suitable credentials from Earl Russell to that Gov- 
ernment. He found the Allopathic practice mostly confined 
to the use of dilute muriatic acid (in doses of one or one and a 
half drachms), combined in linseed tea, given four or five times 
a day, sometimes with gentian, tormentilla, and ginger ; occas- 
ionally recourse was had to dilute sulphuric acid combined 
with sulphate of quinine in equal ijarts. By the use of these 
remedies, and with the external use of carholic acid in propor- 
tion of eighteen drachnis of the acid to forty quarts of water, 
or of vinegar and tepid water, used four or five times a day, 
there had been a saving of 45 per cent. The Homoeopathic 
treatment at Matterness, within a mile of Kethel, in the very 
center of what had become to be styled the " black district," 
as reported by Dr. Hamilton, is also given by his Lordship, 
coupled with the allegation that the Eoyal Commission had 
refused to examine the Doctor as a witness, and the assertion 
of the consequent duty incumbent on the orator in common 
with every individual, to give as much publicity as possible 
to this fact. 

The Homoeopaths commenced their method of treatment 
on the 22d day of September, 1865, when eighty beasts sick 
with Einderpest, as first vouched for by the certificate of 
veterinary surgeons, were put under their care ; of which 
number sixty recovered. Besides these, two hundred and 
thirty beasts were put under Homoeopathic prophylactic 
treatment, twenty-five showing the outbreak of the distem- 
per before the preventive treatment had time to work ; but 
np to the fourth week no other case had occurred, and on the 
21st day of October, the commune was pronounced free from 
disease ; the remedies employed being Arsenicum, Fhosplw- 
rus, Phosplioric Acid, Mhus Toxicodendron and Sulphur. 

Another able exposition of this method of treatment is 
given by Dr. Pope,* from whose well digested review of the 

* See Monthly Homoeopath Review, Feb. 1866. 



TREATMENT. 105 

symptoms of the Pest as they passed under his own eye we 
have elsewhere quoted (see pp. 24, 26). His observations 
were gleaned from over one hundred and seventy cases which 
had occurred in his immediate neighborhood. Accepting 
Smart's view of the morbid anatomy of the Pest, he adopts 
his system of diet and care, and finds that — 

" Certain features of the Rinderpest are very like those of scarlet 
fever. Its toxsemic character, the congested state of the mucous 
surfaces, and the extensive desquamation of epithelium are resem- 
blances, of some importance." 

And it is doubtless because of this similarity, that Dr. Pope 
seems to rely upon Belladonna as of prime value ; an instance 
being given of its efficacy, in the hands of Mr. George Hope, 
a much respected citizen of York, who was determined to use 
his best efforts, and as we judge, without any pecuniary 
reward, to mitigate the losses of his neighbors. 

" An animal was so far advanced in the disease, that on Mr. 

Hope's visiting her, he found that the Inspector had been sent for, to 
give an order for her shooting and burial. It vras late at night and as 
the order could not be carried into effect until the following morning ; 
the owner was persuaded to allow medicine and gruel to be adminis- 
tered during the night. Belladonna was the medicine given, and by 
the morning the animal had so far rallied that all thoughts of des- 
troying her were abandoned, and she made a complete recovery." 

Another-exceptional case of recovery in a late stage of the 
disease is giv^en, in which 

" the cow was completely despaired of, when first seen, and though 
she sufi'ered to a very great extent from emphysema of the subcuta- 
neous cellular tissue of the trunk, completely recovered." 

Dr. Pope very wisely recommends Belladonna, in tincture, 
two to five drops to be administered every two, three, or four 
hours. He says : 

" 1st, 2d and 3d dilutions were tried in our early cases, but they 
were by no means so satisfactory in their action as the pure tincture." 

The other remedies advised by Dr. Pope with their corres- 
ponding indications we will give in his own words ; remark- 
ing that they substantially correspond with those recom- 
mended by The Association for the trial of the Preventive 
14 



106 EINDEEPEST. 

and Oarative Treatment in the Cattle Plague, «&c., &c., of 
which His Grace, the Duke of Marlborough is announced as 
Chairman : 

" Arsenic has been useful chiefly in meeting the prostration about 
the fifth or sixth clay. As a prophylactic I question its value. If it 
have any, it is not in the sense that vaccination is prophylactic to small 
pox; but it simply acts by keeping the animals in good condition, 
and so enables them the better to resist the contagion, giving rise to 
the disease. 

" Mhvs tox. — The chief indication for this remedy has been found 
in the muscular twitchings which characterize the disease in some of 
its stages. 

" Mercurius sol. has been foixnd valuable when the mouth has been 
long congested, and the patches of desquamation are general. 
. '■'■Ammonium caitst., 1st dec, is of service whei-e there is much 
abdominal distention, with heavy breathing and painful moaning. 

" Turpentine, 1st dec, has been of signal service in checking hsema- 
turia, a symptom which did not yield to Cantharis at all. 

" Secede cor., tine, Mr. Emerton thought useful in "one case of sub- 
cutaneous emphysema, and its proving shows that it deserves atten- 
tion in this condition. 

''■Phosphoric acid, 1st dec, Mercurius sol. and Arsenic have 
appeared to control the diarrhoea more than any other remedies ; but 
they have not pi-oved altogether satisfactory. In any future case I 
should be disposed to try Muriatic acid or China. It has been a more 
difficvilt symptom to meet than any other. 

" Ifercicrius cor. 1, has checked several cases of dysentery in very 
marked manner. 

" In one case of apparently impending metastasis, the acetate of 
copper, in grain doses of the first trituration, appeared to prevent its 
development ; but it was the only case in which it was resorted to, 
and therefore much additional exjDerience is required before its value 
here can be estimated correctly. 

"In addition to medicines, much good has accrued from exposing 
the animal's muzzle to steam from boiling water or scalded bran. 
The nasal discharge is thus promoted, and large lumps of coagulated 
mucus are passed, to the great relief of the patient." .... 

In brief review of this method of treatment, it is to be 
observed in all frankness, that inasmuch as the present 
foundation of the Homoeopathic system lies in its Symptoma- 
tology, no little difficulty must be experienced in applying it 



TREATMENT. 107 

to the dumb creation. Besides the drng-provings which have 
been made on the human race, cannot with any certainty, or 
in some cases, even of probability be transferred to the brute 
races. This is more especially true of the ruminant orders, 
whose complex arrangement of the digestive organs would 
render the disparity of symptoms relating to the functions of 
assimilation, and of the reflex action upon the brain and cord 
from the direct influence of drugs acting upon the stomachic 
apparatus, more than probable, ^o such result might how- 
ever be expected, when once the influence of the drug was 
felt, after it had been absorbed and entered into the blood 
circulation. Besides, as in this disease the function of the 
first and second stomachs is quite suspended, and medicines 
carelessly administered (especially in large quantities) and 
thrown into the paunch, are as inert as if lying in their origi- 
nal packages; so it might happen in the administration of 
different drugs to obtain their i)rovings, that different results 
would follow if these were thrown into the first or the fourth 
stomach. And after all, what could we know of their symp- 
tomatic indications so pregnant of suggestion in the various 
morbid states of the human subject, derived from provings on 
a nervous expanse, not only so delicate as to register at once 
every, the most trivial departure from the normal state, but 
so secure and protected in such registry as to confirm it by 
an unequivocal and audible tell-tale ; — what could we know 
except by the loosest inference, when we seek the same intel- 
ligence from those to whom nature denies the power of speech. 
Hence, we are thrown upon the more tardy method of watch- 
ing our provings of medicaments introduced into the system 
of any animal, by experiments on those doomed to slaughter, 
or massing the drugs, and leaving the x)roving to go on until 
death supervenes. So that not only as Dr. Pope remarks — 

"Any nicety in the selection of a medicine to meet a particular 
case, seems well nigh impossible." 

— but all our reliable knowledge of the various scope of drugs 
irritative or destructive of nerve or tissue, alterative of the 
blood structures for a brief period, or exerting power until the 



108 KIXDEEPEST. 

full measure of poisonous clisintegration is established, must 
be principally gained from ^mst mortem observations. 

"We are not to be understood, however, as holding the view 
that in drug-provings on the lower races, there can be no 
symptomatology. We only insist that in the case before us, 
that of the ruminant tribes, it must be extremely limited, and 
that before such knowledge can be extended, a very elaborate 
system of drug-provings upon these tribes should be first 
instituted. 

We are not left, however, wholly in the dark as to the fatal 
action of drugs in poisonous doses upon the brute races, as 
our toxicologists have made from time immemorial, frequent 
experiments illustrating such action, although mostly in dogs, 
rabbits and animals of small size and little value. From the 
records then they have given us, and until other more reliable 
data are furnished, we have to indicate as best we may the 
pathognomic signs, which point, on the Homoeopathic princi- 
ple, to the selection of the chief remedial agents which are 
best fitted for the cure of the Pest. We will detain the reader 
with a few examples : 

Let us take in the first instance Ammonium Causticum 
and its ally of the same base, the Carhonate, which have in 
the hands of Dr. Smart and others, furnished many examples 
of its specific worth, and whose action we can best understand 
by the study of the main features of the poisonous action, or 
what may for want of more fauiiliar phrase, be styled the 
Pathological Anatomy of the former drug. In men, we find 
its scope of action evinced as follows : 

Redness of the Schneiderian membrane (covered in cases of intense 
poisoning with an albuminous membrane), also of the velum pendu- 
lum. palati, of its arches, and of the posterior wall of the buccal cavity. 
The uvula is dried up, and covered with a mucous (epithelial ?) layer. 
Kedness also of the postei'ior surfece of the epiglottis, and the rima 
glottidis, also of the trachea and bronchi, A few intensely red streaks 
in the mucous membrane of the oesophagus and stomach. Red spots 
in the ileum. (In dogs) the contractile power of the muscles extinct 
after death. Dark redness of the middle portion of the stomach 
toward the cardia .... Great fluidity of the blood, &c. 



TEBATMENT. 109 

After examining the symptomatic provings of this drug, 
and especially its power to produce — 

•* violent oppression of the chest ; want of hreath ; desire to draw a 
deep breath (prevented by a pain in the region of the oesophagus) .... 
excessive exhaustion and muscular debility, &c.; trembling ; chilli- 
ness ; pulse at first small, afterwards becoming more rapid, &c.;" 

— or those of its congener, the Carbonate, in producing as 
additional symptoms — 

" swelling, itching and burning of the pudendum ; painful varices of 
the rectum, with bloody discharge ; burning pimples of the size of a 
millet grain, with a scarlatina rash over the upper part of the body ; 
red, itching eruption (fluid and then becoming sometimes fetid), dis- 
appearing in a few days, &c.;" 

— we can hardly fail to find some counterpart of the Pest in 
this drug. Bat we cite from the Edinburgh Medical and 
Surgical Journal for 1841, this interesting case: 

" A young man who usually slept in a chemical laboratory, was 
poisoned by the fracture of a vessel containing nearly fifty pints of 
volatile alkali (liquid ammonia). The accident ogjpurred in the night 
without his knowledge, and he was exposed to the vapors nearly au 
hour. He was roused by violent constriction of the throat and dysp- 
ncea. He arose, but felt sufibcated .... The mucous membrane of 
the mouth and nostrils appeared to be destroyed , and bloody, frothy 
matter flowed from the mouth and nose. The tongue was of a bright 
red color, and had lost most of its cuticular covering .... The dysp- 
noea was extreme ; great thirst .... deglutition almost impossible^ t&c."^ 

It is diflScult, at least from the stand-point of the Homoe- 
opath, to conceive how Smart's stimulant mixture, as he is 
pleased to style it, in which Ammonium appears in another 
form also, that of the Acetate {Spiritus Mindererus), could 
have had any special efficacy, unless Amnion. Canst, sustains 
a special relation to this disease. Nor is it easy for a disciple 
of Hahnemann to conceiv^e how the secretions from the eyes, 
nose, bowels, skin, should be alkaline, unless the morbific 
Influence should hold a close similarity in its action to that 
of an alkali. 

We confess that we cannot find in Arsenicum any true rap- 
port with the Pest. It corresponds in most of its provings 



110 RINDERPEST. 

too closely with certain stages of cholera to sustain a 
Homoeopathic relation with the distemper we are considering. 
It seems to have quite as destructive power over the peritoneal 
as over the mucous coat of the intestinal canal, and the com- 
mon symptoms of erosion of the latter, of great prostration 
and fluidity of the blood, will hardly suffice as Homoeopathic 
equivalents. Yet there may be cases as in the inoculations 
of Jessen, where the tendency to lymph extravasations, or 
others where extreme prostration and tendency to gangrene 
might justify its use as an intercurrent remedy. 

With greater diffidence we venture the opinion that Bella- 
donna can only be deemed a specific in cases where cerebral 
disturbances are manifest at an early stage. True, we have 
the redness of the throat, &c,, but not its swelling ; nor the 
rash upon the skin, as in the human eruption of scarlatina, 
though there doubtless exists epidermic desquamation. And 
unless in addition to its action over the pudendum of the 
female, and the hsemorrhoidal veins of the male, it could be 
shown that Bellafdonna produced a true rubescence* through- 
out the alimentary canal, we should expect it to fail in many 
instances, except where it was needed to assuage the excited 
condition of the cerebral vessels. We ought not, however, 
to have neglected to admit, as a common sign, the horrible 
smell produced in the cadaver. 

If we are to look at the reddened aspect of the throat and 
fauces as a principal sign, why not turn to Bromine. Yet no 
one could confound the violent congestion of these parts, 
covered with coagulable lymph, with the exposure of these 
denuded surfaces in the Pest, except where protected by 
scales of epithelium ; any sooner than a like mistake in the 
degree of rubescence in the stomach or bowels would also 
permit us to ignore the gangrenous ulcers, barely hid. And 

* The post mortem of this Arag shows in raen at least, the coats of the bowels inflamed, and 
parts not only red, but black ; blue spots on the duodenum here and there ; the jejunum, ileum, 
ccecum, and processus vermiformis, lead colored and soft in manj' places ; lead colored spot of the 
size of a dime on the ileo-ccecal valve ; the colon filled with hard foeces. The pancreas and liver 
have the same blue or lead color, the former softened, the latter crumbling andputrefied. The 
spleen is also crumbling and decayed. The lungs are dark blue, otherwise healthy ; the heart 
livid and softened. The abdomen, penis and genitals are hard as a stone, emitting a frothy and 
fetid water when opened. 



TREATMENT. Ill 

for a further illustration of the deceptiveness of the color of 
congested mucous surfaces, we may advert to that presented 
by the provings of Bryonia, where the cherry brown color 
of the mucous membrane of the large intestines might easily 
be allied with that of the rectum in the Pest (though the 
absence of all inflammatory appearances in the rest of the 
bowels might serve as a means of discrimination), or a simi- 
lar appearance of the stomach advise the homceopathicity of 
this drug to eczema epizootica. It would be interesting to 
trace the points of similarity exhibited in the action of Can- 
tliaris, Croton tiglium and Helleborus, with doubtless many 
others that might be named, in their different action as to 
color and intensity of inflammation, with epithelial destruc- 
tion in the month, fauces, bowels, &c. It is worth noting as 
we pass, that in the first and last of these remedies, we have 
the additional mark of the gall bladder filled almost to burst- 
ing, while in the second, the correspondent redness of the 
rectum is not to be wholly distinguished from extravasation. 

The plants of the Eanunculus order, demand greater study 
than they have received, i?. sceleratiis is known to produce 
the affection termed by the German shepherds " cold-fire," 
the cattle declining to eat, tremble and shiver, and their 
abdominal veins become distended. M. repens, eaten by a 
flock of sheep, caused them to fall as if struck by lightning, 
their eyes rolled, their breathing was hurried and aggravated. 
Depletions were injurious. The mucous membrane of the 
eyes was injected ; the mouth dry ; abdomen slightly dis- 
tended, and rumination ceased. Five ounces of the juice of 
R. acris introduced into the stomach of a dog, developed a 
post mortem redness of the mucous membrane of the 
stomach, &c. R. flammula eaten by horses in large quanti- 
ties produces distention of the stomach and inflammation and 
gangrene of the abdominal organs. 

In this connection we may properly advert to Aconite, 
(whose tincture, as we have seen, in 30 drop doses. Dr. Gam- 
gee recommends as a sedative), as this plant is also classed in 
the botanical order just alluded to. Its provings, like those 
of Arsenicum, adapt it to the choleraic branch of zymotics, 



112 EINDERPEST. 

althou<^Ti to different stages. The deep inflammatory blush 
it produces on the mucous surface of the oesophagus, stomach 
and bowels, as far as the coecum, is accompanied with dark 
colored patches (these organs containing a viscid blackish 
green fluid), attended at the same time with an enormous dis- 
tention of the cerebral vessels, which in the development of 
the drug symptoms have caused restlessness, dimness of 
sight, stupor, and partial insensibility, accompanied with 
trembling, cold extremities, bathed (with the forehead in men) 
in cold sweat, and blueness of lips and skin as if asphyxiated. 
The gall bladder is not distended, while the kidnej^s are some- 
what engorged. 

Dr. A. T. Thomson says : 

" It acts first on t'le stomach, then on the nervous system, produc- 
ing vomiting, hypercatharsis, vertigo, cold sweats, delirium and con- 
vulsions, which terminate in death .... It resembles Strychnia in 
its eifects on the posterior extremities when administered to quad- 
rupeds." * 

In cases such as those described by Egan and Pope and by 
Prof. Simonds as occurring iu Galicia (see pp. 23-27), this 
remedy in the tincture, and in doses of five to ten drops, 
might be prescribed until the nervous twitchings and exces- 
sive diarrhoea were arrested. 

Acidum Muriaticum, which in its dilute form was largely 
employed by the Dutch veterinarians, corresponds somewhat 
in the corrosive smarting, slight inflammation and agglutina- 
tion of the eyes and eyelids, in coryza with an acrid discharge, 
and in the painful varices it produces, with some of the promi- 
nent symptoms of the Ptst. Its value is not to be denied in 
acute disease (especially of a septic character), with rapid 
sinking of the vital force, and when the tongue is dark red, 
dry or covered with a viscid phlegm, lips dry, blackish and 
cracked, and the other symptoms last noticed occur. Its 
power also of assisting the gastric juice (perhaps of restoring 
it), must be conceded. But in the absence of any sure experi- 
ments it may be conjectural, whether its use in the early 
stages of the Pest would bring back to the stomachs their 

•Materia Med. and Therapeut., Vol. 1, p. 570. 



TREATMENT. 113 

suspended activity. It may be that this acid may supply 
to the blood the loss, or may arrest the decomposition it 
undergoes, when the chlorides begin to pass oflF. Dr. Thom- 
son is unable to determine whether its tonic effects in dis- 
eases in which he had successfully employed it, is to be 
attributed to its action on the nervous agency, or to its 
decomposition and the action of its chlorine ; although from 
the effects of this ingredient in its uncombined state, he 
thinks there is reason to incline to the latter opinion.* 

We cannot find any proper correlation of Secale Cornutiim 
with the Pest. This drug produces in countries where rye is 
used as a principal cereal, ergotism, both gangrenous and 
convulsive ; as also a congenital form of this disease. The 
skin affections seem to us wholly different from the desqua- 
mator^^ or papular stages of the Pest-ferment, both as to color 
and action ; and with the lungs and cerebral vessels turgid 
with blood, the ureters and bladders filled with watery, 
inodorous urine, almost to bursting, we have hardly a com- 
mon sign except in the distended gall bladder. We cannot, 
therefore, concur with Dr. Pope as to the propriety of its use. ; 
unless where with an unusual disturbance of the skin 
function threatening its gangrenous destruction, we have col- 
liquative diarrhoea, with spasmodic breathing. 

Tartar-emetic or stibium, though used in some of the allo- 
pathic prescriptions, has no correspondence whatever in its 
symptoms or morbid anatomy with those of the Pest. Its 
most marked action is in producing inflammation and conse- 
quent hepatization of the lungs, and also thickness and 
opacity of the membranes of the brain. The mucous mem- 
branes of the mouth and intestines are unusually pale, 
while the peritoneal coat is of a brick red color throughout, 
thus reversing the usual appearances as to color in the Pest. 
These, however, may be the appearances in the slow opera- 
tion of frequent and small doses, while in the rapid poisoning 
(of dogs) the mucous membrane may be highly reddened. 

Tliosplwrus (gout-producing?), with its specific nourishment 
for an impoverished vitality, shows also miraculous power over 

Ubi Bup.,Vol. I, p. 728. 

15 



114 ElNDEllPEST. 

the cerebro-spinal system when depressed or threatened with 
paralysis, in plenritis, pneumonia, typhus abdominalis, acute 
exanthemata, &c. In its ijathological anatomy, it intensi- 
fies the redness of the stomach and small bowels to a purple 
hue (sometimes in the ileum of a dark-red brown) ; and 
though the lining membrane of the stomach is easily separa- 
ble, there is also revealed an intense redness (sometimes per- 
foration) of the muscular coat (peritoneum and omentum 
also) with greenish thick fluid ; that in the smaller bowels 
being ink-colored.. Its power to destroy fibrin is so great 
when exhibited internally (in dogs) that no trace of it can be 
discovered, even with the aid of the microscope. Unless the 
Pest in its early stages had more than usual symptoms of 
typhus degeneration, or was marked with icteric coloration 
of the eyes and skin, its exhibition would be without reason 
or benefit. So too with Pliosplioric Acid, available for 
zymotic affections, only in scurvy and in choleraic diarrhoea. 
■ Cuprum Aceticum produces bright red spots near the pylo- 
rus, but these are accompanied by black spots of the size of 
a pin's head. While the mucous membrane of the stomach 
and bowels is almost entirely destroyed under its action, the 
epithelium is not destroyed but thickened, with a tendency 
to gangrene through the entire track of the digestive canal ; 
the spleen and lungs empty; the liver and kidneys con- 
gested ; the lungs crepitating, and dotted with rose-colored 
spots, ecchymosed too, as also the bowels ; the blood in the 
smaller veins thin and of a cherry-red, while the large, veins 
and right ventricle are full of thick black blood ; we have in 
addition to the bright red spots on the stomach above noticed, 
only a large gall bladder turgid with dark green bile with 
yellowish tinge, to tally with the abnormal coursings of the 
Pest. The principal sphere of this remedy is in the irrita- 
tion of the ganglionic centers and of the medulla oblongata. 
T,o i3ass, however, to other drugs, such as we have shown 
to be in extended empirical and allopathic use, for instance, 
the nitrate of imtasli, better known in common parlance 
as saltpetre. The redness which it produces in the stomach 
is not that of simple congestion of the capillaries, but it 



TREATMENT. 115 

would seem of their destruction, as the blood is poured out 
upon the organ and then vomited up. Its homoeopathi- 
city lies in cerebral congestion, spinal irritation, and the like, 
and though besides what we have noticed, it produces sensi- 
tiveness of the pulse, causing it to flutter, it has no other cor- 
respondence with the symptoms of the Pest, unless such may 
be found in a dropsical oedema of the body. 

Of the chlorate of potash we have but few provings ; and 
these find no illustration from observed phenomena super- 
vening from its use in poisonous doses. 

In like manner we may dismiss Terehinthiuee oleum (tur- 
pentine), whose symptomatic action in this distemper has 
been given by Dr. Pope ; Sulphur, whose potency in chronic 
ailments is brought out by the higher attenuations ; Iron, 
valuable as an auxiliary to the blood in debilitated or cachectic 
constitutions ; and the host of drugs, such as ginger, gentian, 
tormentilla, which in large doses may serve as temporary 
stimulants in many affections, but are without specific eflfi- 
cacy in this. 

Quinine produces in animals an enlargement of the solitary 
glands in the upper portion of the intestinal canal, which is 
very dry. The glands are somewhat inflamed. Some por- 
tions of the canal are slightly reddened, the muscular as well 
as the mucous coat of the smaller bowels is softened, and 
can be scraped off down to the peritoneum ; that of the large 
bowels is similarly affected, but in a less degree. Its dis- 
turbing power in the human subject, when given in large 
doses, results in congestion of the brain and cord, red and 
white softening of the medullary substance and serous effu- 
sion ; the softening and dissolution of the spleen, and blood 
congestion of the liver. It would be of principal value after 
the force of the disease is expended, in the palliation of the 
symptoms of marked exhaustion. 

Rhus toxicodendron, R. radicans and R. vernix, valuable 
in paralytic affections of the extremities, in skin desquama- 
tions or haemorrhages, and in zymotics of the typhus type 
are without massive provings revealing their power over the 
mucous surfaces. Analogy alone can guide to their prescrip- 



116 EINDERPEST. 

tion after Pope's indication of symptoms, or where the bur- 
rowing of the Pest under the skin leads to the conclusion 
that it is directing its force upon this secernent expanse. 

Here we may briefly notice Chloric Ether, prescribed 
by Dr. Priestman. It may be the Chloral of the modern 
school which is obtained by the prolonged action of Chlo- 
rine upon Alcohol;* hence the composition of its name, 
chlor-al. This is a transparent, colorless liquid, of a greasy 
aspect ; has an irritating odor, is quite tasteless, somewhat 
caustic in its action on the skin. It must be dropped into 
water and heated to effect its solution. If brought into con- 
tact with a few drops of water, a white crystalline solid is 
formed and heat is evolved.f Sometimes the term Chloric 
Ether is applied to the chloride of hydrocarbon', the olefiant 
gas of the Dutch chemists, and most probably the ether used 
by Dr. Priestman. Its formula is O2 (01,) Ha- Beyond 
their power of etherization, but little is known of the thera- 
peutic properties of either of these so-called ethers, and their 
use, until further scientific investigations of their medical 
action, must be wholly empirical. 

We may be permitted in closing this part of the discussion 
of remedies proposed, viewed or not from a Homoeopathic 
stand-point; and after presenting thus crudely, the little 
that is known of the Morbid Anatomy revealed by the 
action of leading poisons upon the inferior creation ; to 
state by way of apology for so imperfect a sketch, that it 
is designed mostly to show how much lies yet unexplored 
in this domain of provings in large doses upon domestic ani- 
mals. We say large doses, and we mean, moreover, fre- 
quently — strenuously repeated ; so as to enable the observer 
to compare the narrow range of symptoms, to which he must 

* Alcohol, represented by the chemical formula, C4 He O2, in the presence of oxidizing agents 
which take up two atoms of its hj'drogen, becomes Aldehyd C4 H4 O2. A similar action takes 
place when three atoms of chlorine replace in aldehyd as many of hydrogen, and the result c/i/waHs 
represented by C4 ( Hi CI3 ) O2. Soubeiran, LiebiLT and Guthrie of N. Y., by distilling chloral 
mixed with lime and water, or with a solution of potassa, obtained a liquid which, when shaken 
with sulphuric acid, then separated and rectified over baryta in a perfectly dry retort, yielded chloro- 
form \ which is now more easily obtained by distilling a mixture of 1 lb. chloride of lime, 3 lbs. 
of water and 3 ounces of alcohol in a capacious retort. 

t Brande's Manual of Chemistry, p. 1305. 



TBEATMENT. 117 

be confined from the inability of the subject to express its 
sensations, with the lesions revealed by the autopsy. In this 
way alone can we find a specific for any epizootic, and we 
insist, that before any drug can make a fair claim for specifi- 
city, it should be shown to be capable of at least simulating 
the major part of the lesions as well as symptoms of the dis- 
temper to which it claims a therapeutic affinity. And until 
such or other more judicious experiments shall have been 
conducted to a successful issue, the veterinary art will be 
confined to its present system of palliatives. Every disease 
will run its course ; and the issue of recovery or death will 
be determined by the balance between the germinal power 
of the poison absorbed, and the receptivity of the blood-fluid 
weakened, or recruited by empirical bungling. 

We have yet in reserve, as before announced, the consider- 
ation of those remedies, for which it has been claimed that 
they severally exercise a specific influence in arresting the 
peculiar ferment of the Pest. Incongruous as the list may 
seem, they admit of an easy and scientific classification, and 
may be arranged in three classes : 

1st. Those which are essential or concomitant elements of 
blood-food, and which may be exhibited to supply the waste 
of these elements during the progress of the distemper; 
these as opposing forces may be regarded as anti-catalytic. 

2d. Those which may be supposed to set up a new ferment 
supplanting the morbid one, and thus act as apo-catalytics. 

3d. Those generally known as antiseptics, which arrest the 
putrefactive process, by rendering the fluid or tissues, in and 
on which the ferment is operating, incapable of putrescence 
— or even of fermentation ; and are thus a-catalytic. 

In this first class, as it is not our purpose to refer to those 
which are ordinarily embraced under the head of hygienic 
preparations ; further than to say that Dr. Smart's method of 
preparing and exhibiting food for the sick animal meets every 
contingency which the most skillful and assiduous nursing 
could provide against: we will note a few instances, of which 
the most important is the Chloride of Sodium, or common 



lis UINDERPEST. 

salt. This chloride is found in the blood, gastric juice, urine, 
bone, cartilage,* &c. It exists also as a necessary element of 
vegetable food ; seeds and grain containing the smallest 
amount, while green vegetables and meadow grasses (espe- 
cially Lolium perenne, or common rye grass) hold it in largest 
proportion. t The common experience, of those who are en- 
gaged in the rearing of domestic animals, is familiar with 
the necessity of an artificial supply of this element of the 
blood, in order to obtain their highest perfection ; to secure 
thrift in growth, or even the appearance of health. Bous- 
singault's experiments are very happy and instructive. He 
took six oxen and divided them into two lots ; — to the one 
he gave salt at stated intervals, while he entirely refused it 
to the other. Ko perceptible difference in the appearance of 
these lots was, on the most careful scrutiny, manifest at the 
end of fourteen days ; but at the close of the month it was 
revealed to the most unpracticed eye. In both lots the skin 
under touch was sound and fine ; the hair of those, to whom 
salt had been supplied, was smooth and shining; of the others 
dull and staring. At the end of a year the hair of the second 
lot was matted, or in places had fallen out, and the animals 
were listless and inanimate, while the first lot had the sleek 
and fine coat of stall-fed beasts, and proved their high con- 
dition in frisky and rampant attitudes. It seems strange on 
first thought to learn besides, that the supply of salt had 
exercised no influence on the quantity of flesh, fat, or, again 
in other trials, of milk obtained ; but the marvel disappears 
when we understand that salt plays no part in the flesh-form- 
ing economy, but, according to Liebig, merel}^ neutralizes 

" the injui-ious action of the conditions which must be united in the 
imnatural state of animals fed or fattened in order to produce flesh." 

A clearer statement is, that 

" salt serves in the organism to assist and promote the general changes 
without taking a share by its elements in the formative process." 

It appears that a chemical action takes place in the system, 
by which chlorine (not found in chemical combination in any 

* Simon's Chemistry, Vol. I, p. 2, t Liebig's Familiar Letters, p. 425. 



TREATMENT. 119 

organized patt or tissue, but ever present in every fluid of 
the Lody) leaves its base (sodium) in the common salt sup- 
I)lied to the animal, and unites with potash forming the 
chloride of potassium ; the soda set free uniting with car- 
bonic acid, and forming the carbonate of soda.* 

Time will not suffice to follow these changes as far as 
chemical and physiological research has carried them ; it may 
suffice to add that the chlorine derived from salt, and uniting 
with the salts of potash, is found as a principal inorganic 
constituent of the muscles; that the soda as an oxide is found 
in the secretions of the liver ; as a carbonate in the blood of 
the herbivora (although the ashes of their food yields hardly 
a trace of it), twice or thrice in excess of the carbonate of 
potash ;t while all excess of salt furnished is carried off 
rapidly in the secretion of the kidneys. It is important to 
note that the carbonate of soda (found also in the saliva) 
imparts to it as well as the blood their alkaline properties ; 
that the tendency of this carbonate (as also that of potash) 
is to maintain the fluidity of the fibrine and albumen of 
the blood, that it assists in preserving the form and consist- 
ence of the blood corpuscles ; and also performs an analogous 
function with reference to the other semi-solids of the body.| 

When we consider that all vital phenomena, or manifesta- 
tions of those actions which take place in the body in a con- 
dition of health ; though they may be said to be primarily 
dependent upon the organic nitrogenized elements of the 
tissues or fluids for the power of appropriating materials for 
their nourishment, or of self-regeneration to repair waste ; 
are still, if secondarily, yet as essentially dependent upon the 
inorganic constituents of such tissues and fluids in order to 
keep up their play, and so maintain health and life ; we find 
but little difficulty in concluding, that when any of the proxi- 
mate principles, or elementary constituents, organic or inor- 

* Soda unites also with Oleic and Margaric Acids (the acids found in fat), forming the Oleate and 
Margarate of Soda, which are found in minute quantities in the blood, bile and urine— and with 
Pneumic Acid (the acid found in the lungs) forming Pneumate of Soda, which is not discharged 
from the body. • 

t In the milk of cows four and a half times (according to Berzelius), and six times (Pfaff and 
Schwartz) more than in human milk. 

i Flint's Physiology, pp. 36 and 44 ; supporting Liebig's view, ut sup. p. 426. 



120 EINDEEPEST. 

ganic, are ia excess, or in deficient supply, their harmonious 
motions are disturbed, and the charm of vital play and 
healthy action is broken. The elements, which by too large 
supply in the first instance, or by the deficiency of their 
coordinates, and in the effort of nature to maintain a just 
equilibrium become so, must remain as clogs upon vital 
action, until they are thrown off", or agencies employed to 
restore the balance. And it is in this view that Liebig, in 
commenting on the condition of those animals which in the 
experiments of Boussingault were deprived of salt for a 
twelvemonth, is both convincing and eloquent, when he says 
that their bodies were, 

*'in regard to disease, like a fireplace, heaped with most inflammable 
fuel, which only requires a spark in order to biarst into flame and be 
consumed." 

If the inquiry should now be deemed useless or visionary, 
whether those animals who succumbed so easily to the Pest 
had been denied or not a proper modicum of salt ; or whether 
this agent was of any specific worth in the treatment of the 
murrains of the 17th and 18th centuries;* one conclusion will 
not be gainsaid, that in all future prophylactic and remedial 
treatment of the Pest, salt should be largely supplied in the 
food, and in the absence of other remedies might be relied 
upon as palliative if not curative.! 

We shall embrace under the general division in which we 
have placed the chloride of sodium, two other agents, although 
we are far from insisting that either exists so largely as a 
constituent of the blood-elements, or has been traced as such ; 
or that the latter has any existence in these elements except 
by conversion or as a product of disease. And in order that 
we may not give their consideration an undue prejudice, by 
reason of the classification we have previously made, we will 

* See page 56 of this Report, and note. 

+ As illustrative of the frequent agreement of the tentative experiences of iirstinct in our race, 
and the deliberate conclusions of men of science, it is not improper here to notice the fact that 
the Indians of this Continent, whose nomad life impelled them to the chase for the sustenance of 
life, and limited their supply of food to that mostly deficient in salt, should have used salt suc- 
cesfully as a cure for the bite of the rattlesnake. Sequel to 1st Report, p. 17. See also cases of 
cure by this agent, in Trans, of the Royal Soc, Vol. XII of Abridgement, p. 314 ; with white 
oak bark and vinegar, Vol. IX, p. 230. 



TEEATMEKT. 121 

'for the present urge their disposal at this time as a matter 
of personal convenience ; and with this apology we may be 
permitted to announce a summary view of the uses of Oxalic 
and Acetic Acids in the treatment of the Pest. 

Oxalic Acid is known to exist in vegetables eaten by man, 
as in the Ehubarb plant {Bheum rhaponticiim), and in the 
Tomato {Lijcopersicum esculentum.) 

It obtains also in vegetable food consumed by cattle, of 
which we will only specify the sorrel tribe, either the mount- 
ain variety, oxyria reniformis (R. Digynus, L.), or the com- 
mon Dock (Rnmex acetosa), and the equally common sagittate 
plant. According to Liebig,* it exists in roots, barks and 
leaves to which cattle are frequently found to turn, leaving, 
when opportunity offers, their richer pastures for such relishes. 
True, the acid is found in nature mostly in combination with 
XJotash and lime. As produced by art, however, it is the only 
vegetable product which in its anhydrous form contains no 
hych'ogen, and thus as the analogue of Carbonic Acid, de- 
serves a careful studj^ The experiments made on animals 
by Ohristison and others, mostly by injections into the veins, 
exhibit its immediate control over the motor nerves evinced 
in walking with a peculiar stiff gait, in jerking or drooping of 
the head, and paroxysmal action of the muscles of the chest. 
The bright scarlet spots, observed by Smart, are brought 
out on the external surface of the lungs, unless death has 
been very rapid. Though no reliable deduction can be made 
from these injections into the venous trunks, whether femo* 
ral or jugular ; yet the post mortem appearance in men, who 
have been poisoned with this acid taken into the stomach, 
show the same reddened (sometimes brownish red) appear- 
ances of the mouth, gullet and windpipe (stomach in parts 
black, in parts red), duodenum and jejunum ; with easy detach- 
ment of the epithelium and villous coat, as in the Pest. The 
high affinity this acid has for lime and potash might justify 
its use, as a chemico-physiological experiment, at the ijeriod 
when there was reason to believe that the bases of these 
salts were passing off in the general disintegration of the 

* Animal Chemistry, p. 58. 

16 



122 llINDEUrEST. 

blood-ttiiids. It ooiiUl only \n^ exhibited in dilute form in' 
small doses, lVe(|uently i'ei)ea(ed ; ns in a concentrated 
solution it rapidly destroys the eoats of the stomach, induein<:f 
piuiirene — or aiVeetiny- the brain by sympathy — eonvulsions 
and rapid dissolution. But we only design to indicate it to 
be worthy of provings such as wo have previously suggested; 
Avith the caution api>licable alike to most acids and corrosive 
drugs; that in its administrative trials every etl'ort shoidd 
be made to avoid as far as possible those local lesions in the 
digestive canal, which induce death before the general con- 
stitutional disturbance is produced ; for it is this alone which 
it is of importance carefully to study, both in the consequent 
cbang:es induced in the lining- or enveloi)ing- tissues of the 
principal organs — in their substance, and in that of the fluids 
of the body. 

AcidHui acetlcum {radical vinegar, as it was formerly called), 
may prove of more value than any other acid in this disease, 
and, if so, is of ready use in domestic vinegar. l>y doses of 
four tablespoonfuls a day of the latter given to adults, Dr. 
Parrot, of Dorpat, Eussia, successfully treated many cases of 
epidemic typhus in 1812 ; and this where the fever was accom- 
l>anied with obstinate diarrluea. In this latter symptom its 
use is always admirable. 

Dr. Thomson says that it has been administered in com- 
biiuition with salt in dysentery, checking* the purging- and 
correcting the factor of the stools.* 

Its existence in the sweat has been shown by Thenard, 
and when the acid is combined w ith a base, the a(hlitiou of 
the perchloride of iron to a solution of the salt, produces a 
deep blood red color, an etfect not observed, when the free 
acid is alone employed.! 

In this view, as well as of the combination commended by 
Dr. Thomson, its use would be more etticacious in a Zymotic, 

♦ Materia ^fodioa. Vol. 11, p. 50. In tho prosonce of tho more fiisliionaWo reniodios of the ajje, 
this has almost passed into oblivion as an ethcient assent in Phthisis, for whieh Galon prescribed 
it, and Oriental physicians now nse it. In the form of vinesjrar its use is mostly eonflned to 
domestic cookin';, unless when some young female, nshamed of her obcbity, uses it so IVcely as to 
iuduce hiemoptysis and consumption. 

+ Simon's Chemistry, Vol. I, p. 86. 



TREATMENT. 123 

when saturated with salt, the compound to be adminiKtered 
hiv}^it\y diluted with wat<;r. 

It may be also ur^(;d that tills aeid represents <;h(imieally 
the fruit aeids — at h;ast the one most C/ominon in this elimate 
and country — Malic Acid. Liebi/^ r(5f»ardH all the org^anic 
acids as having an analogous constitution, and deems it 

" tlic moHi natiinil HHf)poHiliori lliut tlM^y conta,iri in one}) caHO a com- 
pound radicul, of which Jlylro^^cn is an clement; in Hucli a manner 
therefore that the convci'Hion of (Jarhonic Acid into an organic acid. 
liaH been cflected by tlie r(!))hicernent of a jtart or of the wliole of 
the oxygon of tfie radical, by hydrogen." 

In this way, and on this supposition, he makes the formula} 
of Acetic and Malic Acids the same, and adds : 

"It iH eaHy to see that tlic formula; of Acetic and Malic Acids cor- 
rcHpond to that of Oxalic Acid (only being doubled), and that Tar- 
taric Acid iu Carbonic Acid, in which half the oxygen of the radical 
liaH been replaced by hydrogen, while one-fourth of the oxygen 
external to tlie radical haH been separated or expelled without 
replacement."* 

It is not to be inferred, however, that the chemical theory 
of eriuivalents as thus expressed, is to serve as a foundation 
for equivalent medical action ; or that any such experience 
as is found in the laboratory would be repeated in the 
stomach of either man or beast. But the manipulations and 
conclusions of the chemist may serve as our sutlicient autho- 
rity for introducing these acids under the general classification 
and at the point we proposed at first on grounds of con- 
venience. 

And here it may meet a scientific requireinent, to bring 
to notice other prinjordial elements of blood-food. In 
such way this branch of our inquiry may take to itself a more 
perfect unity. We have cited common salt as the represeutar 

♦ Animal Chomiijtry, p- '53, Atncr'u (Hd London) udltion. The formulaj arc a« follows : 
Carbonic Acid, C2 y ^ -f O2 = 2 K + 2 O. 

Oxalic Acid, C'2 [] ( -f O = 2 It + O. 

Malic Acid, C4 JJ^ i -f- O2 = -1 K -f 2 O. 

Acetic Acid, C4 Y/' i -f O2 = 4 It + 2 O. 

Tartaric Acid, C4 {J^ I _)_ O3 = 4 K -f 3 O. 



i 24 EINDERPEST. 

tive of the mineral constituents of the animal economy. We 
might, had our limits permitted, also have adduced the salts of 
potash and lime; of which nitre and the iodide and chlorate of 
potash and the phosphite of lime are the representatives in 
medical practice now most commonly in use. But of the non- 
mineral constituents, it is understood that the carbonaceous 
element of the animal frame (through vegetables) is derived 
from Carhonic Acid, two of whose analogues, as therapeutic 
agents, we have adverted to ; that the non-nitrogenized ele- 
ment (as in sugar, starch, oils, &c.) derives its hydrogen from 
tvater; while the nitrogenized elements (as in muscle, gluten, 
&c.) take their nitrogen from Ammonia. 

But as the uses of water are well known, and we have pre- 
viously expressed our views as to the value of ammonia as a 
medicinal agent, we may be considered as having sufficiently 
dwelt upon the typal forms of blood-food, and may pass 
to the second class, of those for which the claim has been 
made, of specificity in the Pest. 

On this class, the one which embraces antagonistic fer- 
ments, we shall not dwell long ; as we will not undertake to 
discuss and do not care even to point to those which in 
putrescent cheese or meat (as in badly prepared Bologna 
sausage), when introduced into the human stomach, have 
produced such subversion of the natural fermenting power 
of that organ and its adjuncts, as in many instances to baffle 
all medical skill. 

It is our purpose to treat in this class only of yeast, which, 
as we have seen (p. 100), has been said to have been success- 
fully tried as a remedy for the Pest ; and our view of it as a 
remedy will be chiefly by way of comparison. 

Yeast deports itself in the presence of many agents and 
re-agents, as the ferments of zymotic disease are believed to 
do, and may in this respect be regarded as their type. As 
familiar as the common mind is with this substance, its sci- 
entific definition may not find such ready discernment. It is 
a compound of nitrogen in the state of putrefaction or 
eremacausis (slow combustion or decay), possessing the 
power of causing fermentation in sugar or non-nitrogenized 



TREATMENT. 125 

organic bodies, of which sugar and starch are the commonest 
instances, and carbon the chief constituent. The presence 
of water is necessary to sustain its power of exciting fer- 
ment, and this is lost under pressure, or when the yeast is 
desiccated and dried. 

It is alone its soluble part, however, that possesses the 
property of inducing fermentation, and this only after it has 
received oxygen from the atmosphere to which it must be 
first exposed. It then developes in its mass carbonic acid. 
Like vaccine or purulent matter — if not kept dry too long, 
and under attendant circumstances which ensure its own 
decomposition — when again moistened, it starts afresh on its 
destructive mission. 

The fermenting process is easily carried forward to putre- 
faction in bodies containing nitrogen, of which, in the animal 
organism, blood is the primum moMle. And as nitrogen has 
so low an affinity for the simple bodies, that it is said to be 
in a state of indifference to them, its evolution is always 
attended with an easy transposition of atoms. When acted 
on by alkalies, by acids, or increase of temperature ; organic 
compounds, containing nitrogen in the presence of water, 
throw off" all that element in the form of nitrates ; but if the 
azotised animal matter first moistened, be exposed to the 
action of the oxygen in the atmosphere ; then in the form of 
ammonia. When gluten, the vegetable equivalent of albu- 
men, is subject to the putrefactive process ; after the evolution 
of carbonic acid and hydrogen commences, the ammonia 
takes on its forms of phosphate, acetate, caseate and lactate, 
which are produced in large quantities ; so that for the time 
being the decomposition of the gluten ceases. But if water 
is freshly added, the process is renewed, and then in addi- 
tion to the products just mentioned, we have carbonate and 
hydrosulphate of ammonia and a mucilaginous substance co- 
agulable by chlorine, &c. Those who desire to follow the 
labyrinthine changes of which nitrogen is capable, will find 
that subject elaborately treated by Liebig,* from whom we 
have freely taken the views above expressed. We must turn, 

* Ag. Chemistry, p 282, et seq. 



3.26 EINDEEPEST. 

however, to the brief consideration of the agencies by which 
fermentation is arrested. 

These are embraced in a long catalogue known as anti- 
septics, of which we may mention the most important; to 
wit, boiling water, alcohol, salt, an excess of sugar, the mer- 
curial salts, nitrate of silver, volatile oils ; the mineral, pyro- 
ligneous, sulphurous and carbolic acids. 

" Alcohol and common salt, in certain proportions, check also all 
putrefaction, and consequently all processes of fermentation ; because 
by these means the putrefying body is deprived of a certain condition 
of its decomposition, namely, the presence of a certain quantity of 
water." 

The action of these antiseptics, in arresting yeast ferment, 
and also the putrefactive process in animal substances, is of 
the highest interest in the pathology and treatment of zymotic 
disease, and will readily furnish to the enthusiastic student of 
medicine most valuable suggestions. His aim in their appli- 
cations in medical and veterinary practice, will be to select 
such as will produce the least disturbance, transient or per- 
manent, on the vital force. We will only add, that from the 
similarity of the action, while in the state of propagation, of 
yeast and morbid poisons, and the identity of the means bv 
which it may be arrested, that it is not improbable that yeast 
may exert a curative action in the Pest ; though even such 
probability requires that more numerous trials should be suc- 
cessfully instituted than those previously noted. 

The old school of medicine has long since exhausted its 
ingenuity in the use of mercurial salts and the like, in the 
treatment of epidemics, and has passed from the general use of 
the mineral acids ; and the present school rejoices in the dis- 
covery of the efficacy of those last named in our list, to wit, 
sulphurous and carbolic acids. 

This brings us to the consideration of two of the most 
valuable antiseptic remedies; which are embraced in our 
third division of specific agencies. 

The farmer has long been familiar with the fact, that if he 
burns a little sulphur ia a barrel which has been rinsed out 
with water, and confines the fumes produced, so that they are 



TREATMENT. 127 

absorbed by the wet surface of the staves ; the cider he 
may subsequently pour into the vessel, Avill remain sweet for 
a long period and will not undergo the fermentation ordi- 
narily induced. This preserving power is one of the attri- 
butes of the sulphurous (not sulphuric) acid generated in the 
combustion of suljjhur, and has been taken as the start- 
ing point for some exceedingly ingenious researches by Dr. 
A. Polli, of Milan. This learned professor adopted the cata- 
lytic theory of disease, as applicable to those maladies in 
which the blood having absorbed some poisonous morbific 
germs, undergoes marked constitutional changes ; and though 
he was met at the threshold of his investigation by the dog- 
matic assertion of the celebrated Bernard, that any substance 
capable of destroying a catalytic poison in the blood, would 
so affect that fluid, that it would be thereafter incapable of 
vital function ; persisted in his inquiries, until he satisfied 
himself that not only did sulphurous acid possess this power, 
but that its compounds with soda, lime, or magnesia whether 
hyposulphites, simple sulphites, or bi-sulphites also exercised 
the same function, and could be exhibited in large doses and 
with perfect impunity. Two animals of the same kind, size, 
and condition, and fed alike for a few days, except that one 
received a certain amount of a sulphite in his food, were 
slaughtered; when it was discovered that the latter gave 
evidence of the existence of the drug in every tissue, organ, 
and secretion ; and furthermore, remained perfectly fresh 
though the weather was that of summer in a tropical clime ; 
while the former, to which no sulphite had been given, 
rapidly passed after death into an advanced stage of decom-r 
position. This experiment being confirmed by many others 
equally satisfactory, the deduction naturally followed, that as 
no fermentation could exist in the presence of a sulphite, and 
as this remedy could be administered without any injury to 
the vital function, and permeate every part of the living 
structure, that it was only necessary to saturate the system 
with a sulphite, in order either to prevent, or arrest the cata- 
lytic action in all zymotic maladies. 



128 EINDERPEST. 

But further to establish this deduction by facts, the Pro- 
fessor next selected two dogs of equal size and weight, and 
in perfect health ; fed and treated them alike for four or 
five days, except that to one was administered a certain 
quantity of the bi-sulphite of soda. Some very foetid pus 
obtained from an ill-conditioned ulcer was then injected into 
the femoral veins of each dog (about a drachm to each), the 
experiment being repeated on the next day. After the first 
operation, both laid down, refused food, and remained pros- 
trated for twenty-four hours. The effect of the second injec- 
tion was more marked. They were seized with stupor, their 
pulses were rapid and feeble, and their respiration greatly 
accelerated ; when made to rise they tottered and reeled 
across the room. The one to whom the bi-sulphite had 
not been given grew worse, his wound in the thigh became 
gangrenous, and in ten days he died with all the symptoms 
of typhus; while by that time the other, receiving his daily 
dose, and having regained in four days his appetite, was 
entirely well. 

Like experiments have been conducted in a vast Dumber 
of cases by the Professor and his compeer, Dr. De Eicci ; 
sanious matter from ill-conditioned and phagedenic sores, — 
deflbrinated blood exposed to the air until it has become 
putrid — the discharge from the nostrils of glandered horses — 
have been employed, and in all cases proved fatal without — 
and wholly innocuous with — the concomitant use of the sul- 
phites. Conversely De Ricci has exhibited the bi-sulphite in 
an alarming case of septicaemia, produced by a lady's kissing 
the lips and face of a dear friend who had died very suddenly ; 
giving nearly twenty grains of the bi-sulphite in infusion of 
quassia, &c., every half hour at first, and then every hour ; 
and with the most perfect success. Since that time the use of 
the sulphites has been extended to cases of scarlatina ; mea- 
sles ; phlebitis, originating from the stinging of the back of 
the hand by the spines of a cactus ; the malignant epidemics 
of the Northern Coast of Africa ; puerperal fevers, &c.* 

* Dublin Quart. Journal, August, 1864 ; Glasgow Medical Journal, October, 1865. 



TREATMENT. 129 

la most if not all these diseases, the administration of the 
sulphites has also proved prophylactic. 

When the fermenting process is arrested by sulphurous 
acid, the rationale of such action, according to Liebig, is that 
atoms of oxygen are taken up from the liquor of ferment, 
and combining with those of the sulphurous acid, form Sul- 
phuric Acid. If this transposition in inorganic, is also real- 
ized in organic fluids, and takes place during the administra- 
tion of the sulphites in zymotic diseases ; the resultant acid 
being formed in very minute quantities and generally distri- 
buted throughout the circulating media, could not exert its 
ordinary local effects, which are primarily escharotic and 
destructive of the tissues. Indeed, Pereira's statements in 
regard to the constitutional action of all mineral acids may 
be adopted here, that they become neutralized by combina- 
tion with bases (of salts), and are not absorbed as free acids 
which operate topically only. In this view we may be 
spared any extended discussion of the constitutional disturb- 
ances produced by the use of sulphuric acid ; and for the 
farther reason that its lesions do not correspond with those 
of the Pest. 

The Sulphite of Potassium develops in the treatment of 
zymotics, action equally beneficial with that of the like salt 
of soda. It is more expensive, and for that reason not so 
well fitted for general use. JSTevertheless, it should be em- 
ployed as we may recommend in experimental trials ; and 
in all desperate and long neglected cases, where it is proba- 
ble that the salts of potash have begun to leave the circula- 
tion. 

Carholic Acid sometimes called Fhenic Acid, but chemi- 
cally, Phenic Alcohol, or Phenol, is said to occur as a natural 
product in the secretion of the beaver, castoreum, whose pecu- 
liar odor is that of this acid ; it is also found in the oil of 
coal-tar. Its aqueous solution has an acrid taste, and an 
odor like that of wood smoke or creosote, of which last it is 

17 



130 KINDERPEST. 

probably a liomologue.* Its formula is O12 He O2. It is ob- 
tained by the decomposition of Salicylic Acidt (an acid of the 
benzoic group), which is itself derived from several species 
of Salix (willow), and from the flowers of Spirtsa ulmaria 
(queen of the meadow). As it is highly jjoisonous, it is to 
be administered with discretion, and largely diluted with 
water. In this form it is very valuable as an application to 
the skin, where wounds and sores reach a putrescent stage,} 
and like the sulphite of soda, thus dissolved, is readilj^ ab- 
sorbed. The latter so diluted and applied with a wet band- 
age, we have known to discuss the formation of ordinary 
boils ; the former of erysipelatous swellings. Whether this 
acid will act as readily or more effectually in arresting the 
Pest-ferment than Sulphurous acid, in its administration 
through the sulphites ; time and experimental trials will best 
determine. 

As we have progressed (though wearily, we fear, to some 
of our readers) in this extended review of the potential 
action of remedies propounded by various authorities as 
available in the cure of the Pest ; some light has been inci- 
dentally thrown (as we imagine) upon the pathological 
course of this distemper. We have seen the important and 
curious part which the chloride of sodium plays in the ani- 
mal economy (p. 119) in the preservation of its equilibrium, 
or what we ordinarily term the state of health. Inferentially 
we are able to approximate at least to the nature and order 
of those disturbances which must take place, when this 
essential element of the fluids and semi-solids of the body is 
withheld in times of scarcity, or through neglect to sup- 
ply it at stated intervals ; or when, in the progress of the 
fermenting processes of disease, it is decomposed or forced 
out of the circulation. Then its normal function must be 
deemed to be wholly negatived ; especially, we conclude that 

* Silliman's Chemistry (Organic by Hunt), § 789. 

t The common lulntergreen {Gaultheria procumbens), contains in its essential oil the ether of 
this acid — to which, or the oil of wintergreen, if strong nitric acid be added and the mixture 
'boiled as long as red vapors appear, triniti'ic phenol biitropia'ic acid), is obtained on cooling, 
lb., § 793. 

X Also in the treatment of compound fractures of bones and in burns, as recommended by Prof. 
Lister; and in the treatment of burns of the first and second degree, by Prof. Pirrie, &c. 



TREATMENT. 131 

the fluiditjt of tlie fibrinous and albuminous elements of the 
blood, and the form and consistence of the blood corpuscles, 
are impaired. 

At such a juncture (though science may not as yet have 
demonstrated the order of the successive stages) we may 
also infer that the transposition of the atoms of nitrogen, 
which in their allotropic forms make blood, flbrine, &c., com- 
mences ; the probability being that they take their departure 
in the form of ammonia, and that some of those subsequent 
combinations are formed in the body, which have been pre- 
viously sketched (p. 125). 

We can thus see how the secretions, not as in cholera, 
largely made up from watery constituents, but surcharged 
with alkaline carbonates, are poured out upon the mucous 
surfaces, with excoriating power ; bringing with them the first 
products of decomposed nitrogenized matter, to be in their 
turn fresh elements of corruption, if communicated to other 
animals ; or, if reabsorbed, additional exciters of the putrid 
fermentation. And we can readily infer, that when the bases 
(salt, potash, &c.,) of the inorganic constituents are withdrawn 
from the circulating media in certain measure, the ferment of 
the organic elements reaches the stage where putrid exhala- 
tions, the evidence of their accelerated decomposition, are first 
the harbingers and then the accompaniment of death. 

But as in organized structures we have not only to consider 
the play of elementary bodies, such as are reproduced in the 
laboratory, and thus display the chemical laws to which they 
are subject ; but also the power, countervailing doubtless in 
many ways, which vitalized membranes and structures exert 
in limiting or enlarging such laws ; and also that mysterious 
agency lying behind all possible phenomena, the vis vitce 
itself: so the views we have just advanced on the function 
of the saline constituents of the blood, and its easy disinteg- 
ration in their absence, total or partial, need further elucida- 
tion in the light thrown by physiological research on such 
topics. We can only glance at one or two illustrations. 

The mineral acids have been generally regarded (p. 126) as 
antiseptic agents. But they exert their power in various 



132 EINDEEPEST. 

degrees of manifestation, and do not all deport themselves as 
pare chemical solvents. In some cases they can hardly be 
said to exert any direct, if any influence whatever, on the 
fermenting fluid. Take, for instance, arsenious acid (com- 
mon arsenic). Its action is wholly confined to the mem- 
branes and membranous tissues with which it is brought in 
contact. It does not exert the slightest influence, according to 
Liebig,* on the fermentation of sugar in vegetable juices, 
the action of yeast on sugar, or even the putrefaction of the 
blood ; its scope of action on the tissues being explained by 
the fact that the gelatinous tissues form a combination with 
this acid, similar to that which tannic acid forms with the 
skin. The prudential use to be made of this discovery of 
the chemist, and as corroborating what has been previously 
advanced (p. 110), is that this acid has no relation to the 
Pest; and that neither this nor any other acid should be 
employed in the treatment of any zymotic, whose force is 
expended in part or in whole on the membranes with which 
it is brought in contact, unless it has the further peculiarity 
of ensuring for, or restoring to them a more active power of 
absorption. 

But a more pertinent illustration is to be drawn from the 
behavior of common salt in the phenomena first observed by 
Dutrochet, when exploring the mutual action of two liquids 
on each other through a membrane. This action was named 
by him and is now generally known as endosmose. 

If a glass tube about six inches long and with an aper- 
ture of one-quarter of an inch, be covered at one end with a 
piece of fresh membrane, taken from an intestine, bladder or 
stomach ; and after being filled with a solution of salt, is held 
in a vessel containing pure water, so that the level of the two 
fluids is the same : in a short time there will be perceived 
an elevation of that contained in the tube, which is to be 
regarded as the result of a force exerted against the law of 
gravitation, and at its height is equivalent to and may be 
measured by a column of mercury two or three inches in 
height. 

* Animal ChemiBtry, p. 136. 



TEEATMENT. 133 

If to the water in the vessel there be added salt enough to 
make it of the same saline strength as that in the tube ; in 
an equally short time, the flnid in the latter will go back to 
its original level. But if again, more salt be dissolved in 
the vessel, the fluid in the tube will soon be found at a lower 
point. The law of these changes of level may be thus 
expressed." 

" The spring water flows towards the saline water, and the weaker 
solution of salt towards the stronger ; as if forced by an extei-nal 
pressure to pass through the pores of the membrane, in opposition to 
the law of gravitation,"* 

Water also flows towards Uood, when into the tube is 
poured ox-blood, deprived of its fibriue, and the experiment 
is conducted in the presence of water heated to blood heat 
or 100° Fahr. • But this flow is dependent upon the existence 
of salt in the liquor sanguinis. 

If again to either fluid, as in the original experiments, 
there be added a free alkali (carbonate or phosphate), the 
change in level is more rapidly produced. And finally, if 
the outer liquid be made slightly acid, then 

" the flow of the acid to the alkaline liquid takes place with the 
greatest velocity." 

The philosophy of digestion in the flow of the alkaline 
fluids of the blood toward the stomach, which, when distended 
with food, secretes an acid, and the general percolation of 
fluids through the membranes of the body find an easy 
illustration in these experiments. The latter may also ex- 
plain how an acid judiciously selected and employed so as 
not to impair the susceptibility of the membranes, may be 
so moved by the swift propulsion of osmose, as not only to 
neutralize the alkali iu excess, but also to arrest the attend- 
ant decomposition. But aside from such conjectural views, 
we have at this time a practical purpose in drawing attention 
to the action of saline drugs. When these are introduced 
into the alimentary canal, to induce catharsis, the flow 
of fluids not so highly charged with saline ingredients, — 

* Liebig's Letters, p. 430. 



134 EINDEEPEST. 

as in tlie experiment with the glass tube, covered with mem- 
brane — is toward the more concentrated sohitions ; and the 
bowels thus distended soon relieve themselves by purgin^^. 
A moment's reflection leads to the conclusion, that as by this 
operation the circulation has been deprived more rapidly of 
its saline constituents than it would have been by the force 
of the disease, the latter has received fresh augmentation of 
its power, and not the amelioration of condition antici- 
pated. Another deduction and we have done. Salines 
introduced even indirectly into the circulation to repair 
waste, should never be in a concentrated, but a highly dilute 
solution ; as it is only in this way we can institute an endos- 
mosal current by which they may be carried into the circu- 
lating media, and reverse the morbid current which tends to 
carry them out. 

We are now in a position where we may essay what we 
have proposed, and propound a method of treatment that 
may best accomplish cure. We would gladly avoid the 
responsibility which must always attend the proffers of those 
who challenge an untried enemy. But if we are clothed in 
the armor of science, and avail ourselves of the promptings 
of a wise instinct inspired by her teachings and instructed 
by the errors of those who have preceded us, we can hardly 
fail. If we should, however, we are satisfied that thus we 
will prepare the way for more successful overtures in future. 

We trust, however, that we may not be ranked with those 
who have at first counted without their host, or at the last, 
made false alliances. We do not propose to shield our 
methods under any special theory, however fashionable. 
We will not espouse all the conclusions of the chemico- 
physiologist, to the disgust of the humoro-pathologist, of 
the disciples of the vital school. We "take the good 
the gods provide" us. We essay only a common-sense 
solution of the foremost intricacies in the problem before 
us ; and will be content, if we succeed thus far, to leave 
what remains to the fancy or skill of the theorists of all 



TREATMENT. 135 

creeds. But that we may not seem to be trifling with the 
honored and well earned confidence which the teachings of 
the different schools have inspired, we interpose an explana- 
tion. If one were bitten by a rattlesnake, it would be 
held by men of ordinary judgment to be the most reprehen- 
sible bravado in him, to refuse all the methods of relief pro- 
posed, and to trust entirely to the i)eculiar strength of his 
constitution to quell the poisonous invasion. And it would 
present a temerity entitled to but little less of blame, if he 
were wittingly to allow the ijoison " swift as quicksilver " to 
course through — 

" The natural gates and alleys of the body 

posset, 

And curd like eager droppings into milk 
The thin and wholesome blood ;" 

— that at the last he might either prove himself in posses- 
sion of a talismanic charm, strong enough to foil its enmity ; 
or by a succession of charlatan-remedies to bafle his antag- 
onist, or by countermoves, to weary him out. The instinct, 
or if you will, the common sense of the race, demands that 
no dalliance be held with such a mortal foe. The bane must 
receive its antidote, if to be found, and that without a mo- 
ment's unnecessary delay. 

In this view, the end proposed is to act as if the Pest 
germs were the poison of an asp, at once to be rendered 
inert; or some baleful dose swallowed, whose corrosive 
action is instantly to be neutralized. The first and great 
point then is to get rid of the toxic effects of the poisoned 
germs which are developed in this zymotic, and to this end, 
if one may quote a homely but expressive ijroverb, " not to 
let grass grow under our feet." 

As a guide to the unskillful — a hand-book also to the 
learned — we will indicate our proposed method of treatment 
in a series of rules. 

Rule I. — In apprehension or in the presence of an outbreak of the 
pest, 
a. Apply the thermometer (see p. 65) to the vulva or rec- 
tum; and if the heat of the parts (the females not 



136 EINDERPEST. 

being in a state of sexual excitement, and none over- 
heated Iby driving, &c.) rises to 102° Fahr,; or — 

T). If no such instrument can be readily had or reliably 
iised ; observe the appearances of the inner mouth (see 
p. 74). If to the eye or by the aid of a magnifying 
glass there appear small round nodules (knobs) no 
larger than a millet seed, red at the point or head, or 
some of them broken and discharging a yellowish or 
yellowish-grey matter, and the thin membrane which 
covered the swelling and those adjoining peeled or 
rolling off:* 

All anhnals exhibiting these signs are at once to he put 
imder treatment as in Mules II, Sc. 

Rule II. — a. Let all such animals be separated at once from the 
herd, and placed in an out-building which is to be 
used as a hosptital — in suitable stalls or boxes — from 
which all hay, grass, straw, litter, loose dirt, cobwebs, 
&c., are to be removed. Sawdust, tan bark, or dry 
sand is to be their bed. 

h. Dissolve 2 oz. of Sidphite (not sulphate, which is 
Glauber's Salts) of Soda, or 1 oz. of the JBi-sidphite, 
in 12 quarts of pure spring or clear rain water. 

(If the treatment of the case has been long deferred, 
or the outbreak be deemed an alarming one, double the 
quantity of the salt may be emj)loyed, not otherwise). 
Administer 1 pint of this solution every hour (or half 
hour), after Gamgee's plan.f A tin twisted cup in 
the shape of a horn, with its mouth well rounded off, 
is to be employed to the exclusion of glass bottles. 
" The operator should go up to the right side of the 
animal, pass his hand over the face into the angle of 
the mouth in the left side. The head is bent round, 
not elevated, except to a slight extent ; . . . . the per- 
son giving the draught to plant his feet well on the 

* Those who apply the thermometer in time will save the whole period of incubation, or at 
least^«« days of burrowing of the pest-germs through the membranous tissues, and of their fer- 
ment in the fluids of the body. Those who watch the first signs in the mouth may save from tivo 
to four days. Those who are so indolent or inobservant, as to wait until they find the disease iu 
full blow, should "go farther and fare worse." Let them hunt up other indications which may 
serve to alarm them. We have no patience for such a task. 

t Cattle Plague, p. 98. 



TREATMENT. 137 

ground, with his back against the animal's shoulder, 

and holding the horn in his right hand, pour its 

contents by degrees into the animal's mouth." 

c. Take one-half (6 qts.) of the solution as above, and 

add to it 12 qts. of warm water (120° Fahr.), so that the 
mixture when used may be at least ten degrees above 
blood heat.* Take a coarse cotton sheet, folded to 
four thicknesses, and wetting it with this warm solu- 
tion, (wringing the edges of the folds so that the water 
will not drip), lay it on the middle of a coarse woolen 
blanket (previously fitted as to size, and with straps 
to fasten it, &c.); then apply to the abdomen and fasten 
the blanket over the back. (Apertures may be made in 
the blanket if long enough, so that the hind as well 
as the fore legs may not be restricted in their motions, 
and so as to protect the chest and buttocks from the 
air) f . 

d. If no Sulphite or Bi-Sulphite of Soda can be procured, 

or more than one animal is to be treated, use CarhoUe 
Acid, 4 drachms to 12 quarts, pursuing the same 
method of internal as well as external treatment as in 
{b and c). 

e. For like reasons as in last rule, employ 1 oz. of Aqua 

Ammonia to 12 quarts of water, as in {b and c), or, 

/. 1 pint of alcohol with as much salt as it will hold in 
solution as in {b and c), or, 

ff. l^ quarts of vinegar saturated with salt as in {b and c), 
or, 

h. Other remedies, the specificity of which is to be proved 
by the same methods. 

^. As an independent experiment with the sulphite of soda 
(or if the sulphite of potassium can be had, with it 
also), 20 gr. powders might be thrown every hour 
under the tongue, to be dissolved in the saliva which 
is rapidly secreted and then to be swallowed. 

* This temperature will meet the requirement of the fourth law of absorption by osmose as laid 
down by Matteucci in his fourth Lecture on the Physical Phenomena of Living Beings.— Am. 
Edit., p. 89. See also p. 133 of this report. 

t As the object of this application is to induce endosmose of the saline solution by the abdom- 
inal organs, and not a general perspiration, the blanket must not be too tightly secured. 

18 



138 EINDERPEST. 

Rule III. — If the symptoms do not indicate that the ferment has 
subsided, twelve hours after the medicinal di-aughts 
as prepared have been entirely taken, or if they recur, 
commence anew with a fresh portion of the remedy 
selected, and proceed as in Rule II (5 and c). 

Rule IY. — a. If nervous twitchings or the like make their appear- 
ance, apj)ly pounded ice in a bladder or bag, to the 
base of the brain and the spinal cord (from between 
the horns for a few inches along the neck). If this 
application does not soon relieve, and the Homoeopathic 
treatment is preferred, in the choice of intercurrent 
between the doses of the anti-septic remedies, as above 
to be employed ; give 10 drops of the tinct. of Bella- 
donna in four table spoonfuls of water, or if the 
Allopathic methods are chosen, and diarrhoea has 
supervened, add a table spoonful of laudanum* to a 
pint of starch emulsion (or warm water) and inject as 
an enema into the rectum. 

b. If after twelve hours from the commencement of the 

treatment, symptoms of aggravation appear, the dose 
may be doubled. Otherwise if evidence of improve- 
ment appears, it may be less in quantity and given at 
longer intervals. 

c. When it appears desirable to remove the bandage from 

the bowels, the portion of the body wet by it may be 
gently dashed with water from the well (60°-7O° 
Fahr.), then rubbed perfectly dry, and the body cov- 
ered with a fresh blanket so as to exclude the action 
of cool air. 

d. If the bandage is not used, still the animal is to be cov- 

ered with a blanket, and the temperature of the stall 

* It would be u-^eless to give morphia or opium in any of its forms, while a medicinal endos- 
mose is being instituted— as it is well known that these first check and then reverse the process 
(see Matteucci's Lectures, p. 79). They can be exhibited only when the morbid osmose has filled 
the bowels and brought on diarrhoea. If the brain conditions indicate the use of opium in coma, 
stertorous breathing, and upturned eye and contracted pupil (or a pinched eye), a warm solution 
should be applied and rubbed in, along the face or the under part of the neck, or one-half of a 
grain of morphine, or 5 grains of first decimal Homoeopathic trituration may be thrown in under 
the tongue. It will be readily admitted as unwise, in the present state of our knowledge, to hope 
for alleviation of symptoms by putting opium in any of its forms, in the stomachs, while they 
are in a state of suspended activity. Otherwise we admit, if scientific experiments could show 
that w^en the normal endosmosal current towards the stomachs had completely ceased, opium 
could exert an antagonistic power, and renew the current. 



TREATMENT. 139 

kept not lower than 60'^ Falir, If the covering is 
sufficient, fresh air may be more freely admitted. 

Rule V. — a. When the patient gives signs of hunger, dilute milk or 
boiled gi-uels (as in Smart's method, p. 92), to which 
a free allowance of salt has been added ; or when 
thirst is manifest, water from which all chill has 
been taken, may be given a half hour before the 
administration of the medicine. 

b. Should any unpleasant odors arise from the body, breath 

or droppings, dilute sulphuric acid may be added to 
a small portion of chloride of lime, and after the early 
escape of chlorine, and when the caustic smell of lime 
is perceived, the vessel is to be removed ; and the con- 
tents, added to the droppings of the sick beasts, also 
to be removed, and covered with six inches of earth. 
Or carbolic acid may be used in dilute solution, and 
the sides and floor of the building sprinkled with it. 
And so with any disinfectant, such as carbolate of 
lime, sulphate of iron, dissolved in water, &c. Car- 
bolic acid may be dissipated through the building by 
throwing from time to time a few grains of it upon 
a hot plate — dipped for a few minutes in boiling water 
and then wiped dry. 

c. If constipation show itself so as manifestly to make the 

animal uncomfortable (and not otherwise), give two 
quarts of an injection of blood warm water, to which 
a couple of tablespoonfuls of. salt have been added. 

d. Should any disposition to swelling (emphysema) sho^v 
• itself along the back from the beginning, make the wet 

bandage large enough to go around the trunk ; if it be 
only partial, or occur at a late period, shift the band- 
age, &c. 

e. If any viscid or glairy secretions from the eyes, nose, 

mouth or vulva begin to flow, the parts are to be fre- 
quently bathed with a weak solution of carbolic acid, 
or with vinegar to which an equal portion of water 
has been added. 



140 EINDERPEST. 

Rule VI. — The sequelae, of the disease must he treated accord- 
ing to their indications.* If the medicines haA^e 
not been pressed with too much activity, there need 
be but little apprehension of any violent reaction on 
their use. And if no such reaction manifests itself, 
the animal is best left to the " vis medicatrix naturce.^^ 

Rule Yll.^a. When convalescence is established, the diet as given 
by Smart may be folloAved. Before being admitted 
to the herd, the jDatient should be carefully washed 
with a weak solution of carbolic acid, into a stronger 
solution of which the feet first washed out in the 
clefts very carefully have been allowed to stand for a 
time. After this operation a quarantine of seven days 
would be advisable. 

b. To cleanse the premises boiling water may be sprinkled 
frequently and copiously over the stalls, flooi's, &c. 
If cold water is employed, the common washing soda 
of the shops should be added, and all boards, &c., 
carefully scrubbed. The clothing of attendants may 
be treated in either of the above ways, or may be 
washed with water to which carbolic acid has been 
added, or they may be hung up in a barrel, and sul- 
phur slowly burned under them, &c. 

This method of treatment will, we trust, be received by 
candid minds as fulfilling our pledge, not to commit it obse- 
quiously to the interest or dogmas of any school. It will be 
doubtless considered in this respect suflicientlj^ catholic. In 
the variety of agencies offered in Rule II, opportunity is 
offered to determine experimentally which is most efficacious. 
If the so called antiseptic remedies prove their superior 
virtue, they will furnish additional proof that this zymotic 
acts as a true ferment. If ammonium causticiim takes the 
lead, it will afford another illustration of the Homoeopathic 
law. If the absorption through the wet bandage (and we 

* The constitutional disturbances produced by the force of the disease— perhaps also by the 
remedies— may require further medical treatment. This must be determined according to the 
preferences of the practitioner and the methods of the school to which he belongs. The forego- 
ing pages mxy prove a sufficient guide to indicate which medicines in especial contingencies 
cover the case most completely. 



TREATMENT. 141 

would like to see isolated trials of this method), should work 
successfully, this would draw just attention to the practica- 
ble adaptation in disease of the law of endosmose, and 
would ameliorate the heroic use of the water treatment. 

In conclusion, whichever of these remedial methods should 
give the greatest percentage of cures, would best indicate 
the selection of a prophylactic agent; though we imagine 
that even the use of this would not excuse the farmer or 
stock-grower who did not, in the presence of this epizootic, 
give to his cattle at least their ordinary quota of salt, as 
often as twice a week. 



P. S. Thanks are due and very cordially expressed to Alonzo H. 
Clark, M. D., of New York, for access to the jDlates, &c., of PerigofF; 
to S. O. Vanderpoel, M. D., and E. P. Hun, M. D., of Albany, for the 
studies of Lebert and Cruveilhier; to Sam'l Lilienthal, M, D,, of New 
Yoi'k, for translations from Jessen ; to John L. Vandervoort, M. D., 
Librarian of the New York Hospital, for transcriptions from Ram- 
raazini and Lancisi ; and to the Committee of the New York Medical 
Society, of which D. D. Smith, M. D., is Chairman, for marked courtesy 
and very valuable suggestions. It is not to be inferred, however, that 
either of the above named gentlemen, celebrated for their mastery of 
Pathology and Therapeutics, are committed to any of the conclusions 
in this report. These, hastily sketched in intervals of leisure, must 
stand as the independent conclusions of the writer, and as they have 
been put forth with much diffidence, a kindly criticism is solicited for 
them. 



mr, 27, '.'i:>.^. 



APPENDIX, 

Giving the descriptions of symptoms, and post mortem 
appearances, &c., of the epizootic of 1711, as described by 
Eammazini and Lanoisi ; as in the original text. 

Symptomata — Eammazini, p. 787. 

" Aflfectiones genus, quod Bubulo generi bellum ad internecionem usque videtur 
indixisse, ex frigore, rigore, hoi'ripilatione, mox ex calore acri, et veliementi per 
universum Corpus difiFuso, cum pulsus frequentia, febrem esse satis liquet, malignam 
vero, exitialem, pestilentialem etiam, si mavis, esse aperte testantur, quae illam 
comitantur symptomata ; qualia sunt, magna anxietas, et gravis anhelitus, etiam 
cum STERTORE, et in principio febris, stupor et species qusedam veterni, continuus 
ex ore, et naribus graveolentis materim descensus, fcetidissima alvi proluvies, interdum 
etiam omenta, anorexia, et abolita penitus ruminatio, pustules quinta vel sexta die 
per totum corpus erumpentes, ac tuber cula variolarum speciem referentia, com- 
munis tandem omnium eodem modo circa quintam, et septimam interritus, cum 
Boves paucissimi evadent, iique forte potius quadam, quam remediorum dynami. 
Hsec quidem ex se patent, quid vero intus patiantur miserandi Boves, cum jacent 
anxii, ac stertentes, ac dum stant immoti, capite usque ad terram demissio, conjec- 
tare quidam possumus, sed ex mutis animantibus, quae per nutus nihil significare 
possunt, nil certi rescire possumus, quod forsan in causa est, ut difficilior sit 
curatio. Causam igitur hujusce malignae febris pro viribus perscrutemur. 

Omnibus epidemiis, si a sporadicis aflfectibus differre debent, id peculiare inest, 
quod communem causasa liabeant, sive ab Aeris vitio, sive a corruptis alimentis, 
aut ab aliquo contagioso fomite prognata fuerit, qui ab uno corpore in aliud trans- 
migret illique eandem labem communicet." 

Observatum in Dissectis Cadaveribus, p. 791. 
"In Boum cadaveribus, quotquot Lanionum secespitae subjecta fuere coram Ex- 
cellentissimis Anatomes Professoribus D. Molinetto, et Yiscardo, id singulare in 
omnibus repertum est; in Omaso nempe, corpus quoddam durum et compactum, 
ventriculi parietibus fortiter adliserens, magnae molis, et intolerandce graveolentice ; 
in aliis vero partibus repertse sunt liydatMdes, in cerebro^ pulmonibus, sicuti etiam 
ingentes vesica solo flatu plenae, quae dissectse diram MepMtim exlialarent, ulcera in 
rcodice linguce, et ad illius latera vesiculce sero plenm. Illud vero corpus durum, et 
compactum ad instar colds, quo(^ in Omaso observatur, primum productum esse 
contagiosi miasmatis, pro certo habeo, dum tacite saevitiem suam exercens, stoma- 
cliicum fermentum labefactat, et corrumpit ; non enim est credibile, post febrem 
excitatam, conflari hoc corpus intra paucos dies, dum Boves ubi primum febrire 
coeperint, quodcunque alimentum aversantur, nee quidquam, nisi liquidum per os 
infundi potest : caetera vero, quae memoravimus, malignae febris producta esse, 
facile crediderim, sed omnium Phoenomenorum exactam rationem adferre velle, 
non patitur unius horae ambitus ; ampla enim materia suppeteret, ad integrum 
tractatum couscribendum." 



144 APPENDIX. 

Symptomata — Lakcisi, p. 117. 

" Utique vidimus interdum in nonnullis bobus primum indicium contractse pestia 
fuisse, fugam arripere, ululare, stertere, ac mille modis quasi subito terrore perci- 
tos se se agitare ; scilicet quod venenum, cum in iis volatilium salium ubertatem, 
miramque fibrarum nervearuni in spasmos proclivitatem invenisset, diversos statim 
convulsivos qua externos, qua internes motus induxit. Alios etiam spectavimus, 
tametsi rarius, prmcoci morte, quasi fuhnine tactos interiisse, eos videlicet, qui 
natura sua jam enerves, spirituque fuerant destituti. Sed in plerisque prsecipua 
exceptse luis signa extiterunt subito moerere ; caput demittere ; e languidulis 
ocalis laclirymas, e naribus, et ore mucum, et salivam fundere ; atque interim febri 
cum horrore, vel IwrripUatione correptos, nauseantesque bumi jacere ; semper autem 
fhlogoses, pustulce, ut innuimus, liydatides, et ulcera linguam et fauces summo cum 
ardore obsidebant. Principio ut plurimum sitientes multum bibebant ; postea vero 
a potu, ciboque penitus abstinebant ; et idcirco cum deglutire, ac ruminare non 
possent, inedia, sitique celerius etiam, quam natura forte morbi factum esset, ad 
interi'tum adigebantur ; alvo ssepe ssepius lubrica, dejectisque foetidis, variegatis, et 
interdvim cruentis bumoribus. Plerique tandem omnes putidi, gravique cum anhe- 
litu, non raro etiam cum tussi intra primam hebdomadem occidebant. Qui autem 
ad alteram pertingerent (erant autem perpauci) evadere consueverant ; praesertim 
si cadentihus pilis corium exasperaretur, aut facto ad nates, et ad crura decubitu, ne 
libere possent incedere, probibiti fuissent. 

Vermes interim in naribus, ad cornuum radices, in labiis, atque ore comperieban- 
tur, quibus scilicet locis muscarum agmina poterant eonjluxisse." 

QUID OBSERVATUM FUERIT IN DISSECTIS CADAVERIBtTS. 

" Quod vero spectat ad ea, quae in bourn cadaveribus detecta fuerunt ; illud prae- 
nosse convenit, raro in peste denatis certas, et perpetuas apud illorum viscera affec- 
tiones deprebendi ; etenim lues a liquidis primo excipitur, et ab iisdem postea aut 
bsec, aut ilia membra pro varia eorundem conditione corripiuntur. Id sane eviden- 
tissimum apparuit in tribus extispiciis, quse nos fieri curavimus ; nam prater oris, 
fauciumque ulcuscula,, atque ossophagi, omasi, pulmonumque a rubore subnatum 
livorem, sen gangraenam ; quas quidem res in unoquoque pene similes comperimus, 
diversce in singulis occurrerunt viscerum Icesiones. Etenim in primo, qui tertia 
morbi die perierat, animadvertimus in omaso tum foeni duriusculam massam, tum 
pilam illam, quam Plinius Invencarum tophum apellat, ortam scilicet ex abrasis 
lingua pilis, et mox deglutitis, subinde vero peristaltic! motus ope in modum filtri 
accedente saliva coactis ; coetera viscera parum a statu sanitatis abfuerunt. In 
altero deinde, quoniam interierat 6 die, cum hepar et intestina tum pulmones spJia- 
celo tentata erant. In tertio cor etiam, et cerebrum corruptum pene diffiuebant 
Neque quidquam in ipsorum liquidis constans, et memorandum observare licuit ; ob 
peculiares enim fluidorum erases variam quoque illorum fluiditatem, et colores 
oflfendimus." 



EEBATA. 



Page 11, line 5 find 6, for " constitutiooeris," read — constitatio-geris. 
" 37, " 15, for " Grarabee," read — Gamgee. 
" 38, " 26, for "in one case," read — in the same case. 
" 39, " 27, for " irridescence," read — iridescence. 



DESCRIPTION OF PLATES. 



PLATE I. 

Fig. 1. Lower jaw of a Riiiderpest cow. Under lip everted. Showing charac- 
teristic congestion of the superficial membrane. Also its peel- 
ing oif at a more advanced stage of the disease, from the gum, 
exposing the raw surface of the mucous coat, See p. 31. 

Fig. 3. Microscopic view of the epithelium from same membrane, partly rolled 
up into scrolls and cylindrical forms, partly presenting its proper 
flattened and nucleated appearance; also showing mucous corpuscles, 
starch cells, &c. The epithelial scales are very granixlar, and evi- 
dently undergoing retrograde degeneration See p. 32. 

PLATE II. 

Fig. 1. Giving the equally characteristic capillary congestion of the mucous 
membrane of the swollen vulva, the aphthous eruption on the upper part 
of the left labia near the integuments, the inflamed clitoris and ropy 
discharge from the orifice, See p. 36. 

Fig. 2. Section of the 4th stomach of steppe calf No. 14 near the pylorus, show- 
ing the ulcer-like depression leginning to heal, See p. 29. 

PLATE III. 
Fig. 1. Section of the 3d stomach, exhibiting the scarlet rings frequently found 

in its gastric folds with their denuded and dusky centres, See p. 32. 

Fig. 2. (a.) A single papilla attacked, and the capillary congestion commenced, 
and beginning to spread, 
(b.) The same seen under the microscope, and the minutest capillary vessels 
engorged and branching off" towards the adjoining papillae. See p. 33. 

PLATE IV. 

Fig. 1. Mucous coat of the 4th stomach, contrasting its earlier and more advanced 
stages of degeneration, See pp. 33-4. 

Fig. 2. Same from 4th stomach of inoculated cow, No. 6, showing ecchymoses 
shining through the violet colored membrane, See p. 28. 

PLATE V. 

Fig. 1. Showing complete injection and arborescent forms of the capillary vessels 
when fully congested in the small bowels. 

Fig. 2. Characteristic mahogany appearance of the same after such extreme con- 
gestion, See p. 35. 

PLATE VI. 

Fig. 1 and 2. Sections of the duodenum in steppe cow No. 8, showing yellow 
fibrinous masses from Pej'er's glands (fig. 2, showing one Pey- 
er's g]ai\d and two Solitary Follicles, the exudation being removed 
■from the former at both ends), See p. 30. 



PLATE VII. 

Fig. 1. Section of jejunum instcppe cow, No. (J, mucous membrane colored black- 
ish by pigment. Peyeriau glands strongly injected, See p. 38. 

Fig. 3. Section of jejunum in steppe calf No. 33, witli one Peyer's gland, tlie 
exiidation being separated from it. The solitary follicle, hypersemical 
and reddened, See p 31 . 

Fig. 3. Section of the large intestines, showing the " zebra appearance " of Boulay 
as the result of the extreme congestion of the larger vessels of its 
mucous folds (rugae), See p. 35. 

PLATE VIII. 

Fig. 1. Section of the mucous membrane of the cjecum of the vaccinated cow 
No. 6, See p. 38. 

Fig. 3. Free exudations (like polypus, with depressions, &c.), poured out in great 
multitude, in the concavity of the small bowels of the steppe calf No. 
33, See p. 31. 

PLATE IX. 

Fig. 1. Appearance of the haemorrhoidal congestion of the rectum, . . . See p. 35. 
Fig. 3. Highly vascular engorgement of the capillary vessels of the mucous 

membrane of the wind-pipe, See p. 37. 

Fig. 3. Section of 4th stomach in eczema epizodtica, showing in the dark irregular 

patches the hsemorrhagic or sab-mucous effusions in tliat disease ; 

(observe contrast with appearance of same stomach in the Pest in 

Plate IV), Seep. 40. 

PLATE X. 

Fig. 1 and 3. Colors of newly drawn blood from (1) healthy ox, and (3), from 
Rinderpest cow, See p. 38. 

Fig. 3 and 4. Microscopic field (3) of (l)-(4) of (8), showing in (3) a few red 
corpuscles corrugated from sudden transference of blood when 
warm to the unheated slide of the instrument ; the proportion of 
white to red cells; the absence of granular matter, and the 
free almost isolated position of each cell ; in (4) the smaller size 
of the red, and greater abundance of the white corpuscles, their 
distention, rupture and shedding of contents; their stellar form ; 
the number of granules from broken cells, and the cohesion of 
the corpuscles in irregular masses, See p. 38. 

Fig, 5 and 6. Crystals (with white corpuscles), as seen by Gamgee See p. 63. 

PLATE XI. 
Fig. 1. Rinderpest milk, in most advanced stage of the disease, under the micro- 
scope, the fatty cells elongated and crowded. 
Fig. 3. Healthy milk, the butyric elements floating freely, &c., See p. 39. 

PLATE XIL 
Fig. 1. Flesh of Rinderpest cow, freshly slaughtered with fat, &c. 
Fig. 3. " after exposure to light and air for 84 hours, showing change of color 

and shrinking mostly in the fat. 
Fig. 3. Flesh of healthy ox, after like exposure, See pp. 39, 40. 



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